For social worker Van Gottel, the search for affordable housing for his clients left him unable to sleep. Friday, he started making a dream come true.
"About four years ago, I woke up from a stress dream, and that's how it began," Gottel said.
On Friday, his Non-Profit Industries Inc. unveiled socialserve.com in uptown Charlotte.
The online service is designed to help people find both affordable housing and social services in Gastonia and Charlotte. It is free to landlords, as well as individuals seeking help and those who want to help them.
"I was working with high-risk kids and the long and short of it was they hadn't had stable housing for years," Gottel said. "Then I realized that my clients were suffering from my lack of knowledge."
So Gottel began forming the concept on nights and weekends. The first big step came when independent consultant Dave Tilley of Raleigh developed what Gottel called a "$200,000 database on a shoestring."
In June 1998, along came U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick's Task Force on Housing. It was chaired by Jon Gauthier, director of the Fannie Mae state office. Annie Thombs, from Gastonia's Community Development Corporation, served on one of the subgroups.
"We started in June 1998 and met for a solid six months," Gauthier said. "We came up with six core recommendations that we presented to selected bodies, and this is the implementation of one of the key ones."
Web site funding came from Fannie Mae (a $25,000 initial grant), the cities of Charlotte ($30,000) and Gastonia ($10,000), the Department of Housing and Urban Development ($129,000) and Bank of America ($10,000). Both Gottel and Gauthier credited Myrick with securing the HUD money.
"It's easy to deal with the warm-and-fuzzy things like building neighborhoods," said Gastonia Mayor Jennie Stultz before the unveiling, "but you can never forget that there are working poor and poor that need our help, and we dare not leave them behind."
Listed on the new Gastonia site Friday were 26 rentals ranging from $300 to $450 a month. By clicking on an individual address, a browser could find information including:
- Number of bedrooms and bathrooms
- Distances to the nearest bus stop and playground
- Whether criminal or credit checks are required
- Rental amount, including application fee and deposit
- Minimum term of lease and maximum occupancy
- If Section 8 federal money, tax credits or subsidies can be used
- If there was air conditioning and whether pets are allowed
- What type of appliances are available and what utilities are furnished
- Landlord and/or property management address and phone number
"The thing that's so phenomenal now to us is the possibilities where it can go," Myrick said. "It can be resource for HUD as well, and I'll eventually be talking to Mel Martinez, Secretary of HUD, about this."
Gottel said plans call for on-line applications and leases, and eventual databases from respective social agencies.
Gottel credited Thombs, Mary McCreight and Joan Painter with the city of Gastonia and Ben Rice with Goodwill Industries/Job Connection of Gaston County with taking a model generated by United Way and updating and expanding the information that appears in the Housing, Programs, Services, Education and Community categories. Each of those five has three sections.
All it takes to find information in any of those is a click of the mouse. Both Gottel and Gauthier said the site has received an average of 25,000 hits per month for the past three months. "And that was just on word of mouth alone," Gauthier said.
Gottel said Friday he could see the day when rural areas could be grouped by region and could be part of this service.
"We had 900 searches and we've heard from landlords who represent 620-some-odd properties just today," he said.
On the Net: http://www.socialserve.com/
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The Gaston Gazette , PO Box 1538 , Gastonia, North Carolina - USA 28053
Phone: 704-864-3291 Email: gastongazette@link.freedom.com
