Lexington’s Threshold Housing Commission is putting the finishing touches on the city’s new Homeowner Helper Program, which is still on track to begin accepting applications in January.
Over the past five months, the Commission has been working to fine-tune the process by which applications for assistance from the program will be scored by members of the Commission and the steps that will be taken by city staff and pre-approved contractors prior to applications being brought to the Commission for consideration.
The application will consist of a questionnaire that the homeowner will answer to determine if the applicant owns and lives in the home, who else lives with them, whether they have a mortgage and if they are getting any rental income for the property. There will also be space for them to list the issues they would like the program to address.
The program is primarily focused on promoting “safe and affordable housing in Lexington and prioritizes home repairs that address health, safety or welfare concerns,” according to a draft summary of the program.
The summary also lists several examples of the kind of repairs that fall under this definition, such as repairing porches, repairing or replacing broken windows, doors or roofs, bathroom and kitchen repairs and repair or replacement of unsafe electrical services.
The goal of the program is to help homeowners stay in their homes by making repairs and improvements that the owner otherwise couldn’t afford. If such improvements are determined to involve larger issues, such as asbestos or lead paint, Threshold may refer the homeowner to other programs more suited to handle those kinds of projects.
Threshold has spent the past several meetings finetuning a scoring system the members will use to assess each application they receive. The system will have three criteria groups, each with its own scoring system.
For the first group, members of the Commission will consider whether the home has “unsafe or unhealthy conditions” that the program could address, and whether the circumstances the homeowner is living in constitute “an immediate risk.” For each of those questions, each member will give either zero, two or four points based on the description of the state of the home in question for a maximum total of eight points.
The second criteria group focuses on whether external projects are included in the application and what the house scored in the windshield survey that was conducted late last year.
If exterior improvements are needed, the application will receive either zero, one, or two points. Additional points will be given for the windshield survey score. Homes that scored a three in the survey, meaning they were determined to have “significant defects,” would get one point, while homes that scored a four or five – that had major deficiencies or were dilapidated – would get two points. Homes that scored one or two in the survey (meaning they either had minor external defects or none at all) would not receive additional points for this question. The maximum number of points available through group two is four.
The final group considers the occupants of the home. Applicants will receive an additional point if the head of household is elderly (62 years old or older), disabled or a veteran, or if there are children under the age of 18 or other household members who are elderly, disabled, or a veteran. Between all three groups, the maximum number of points an application can receive is 13.
Once each member of the Commission has ranked each application, they will meet to discuss their rankings and determine which applications will receive funding.
The current plan is to open the first round of applications on Jan. 15, 2026, with a deadline of March 1. Applications may be considered after the March 1 deadline on a first-come, first-served basis if funding is still available.
The city has budgeted $250,000 for the program. Once projects are approved by Threshold, the funds will be loaned out through the city’s Economic Development Authority to pay for the contractors to make the repairs.
The city’s Planning and Development Department will coordinate with preselected contractors to carry out the work. The cost of the project will then be assessed as a lien on the property which the city will collect when the property is transferred to a new owner, either through sale or through transfer to a relative by a will after the homeowner’s death. Once collected, the money will be returned to the program to be put toward other projects.
The program was proposed to the city of Lexington by City Manager Tom Carroll, who developed a similar program when he was serving as the village manager of Silverton, Ohio (Ohio has villages instead of towns), with the goal of improving the neighborhood by providing a way to help homeowners who had been cited for code violations to the outside of their homes pay for repairs they were otherwise unable to afford. Unlike that program, the Lexington program will be based on need and will not be initiated through a code enforcement process.
Threshold will have its next meeting on Dec. 10, when it will put the finishing touches on the program before initiating it next year.
Among the topics that will be discussed at that meeting are whether to set aside a portion of the $250,000 to provide temporary lodging to homeowners who may need to vacate their home for a portion of the repair and don’t have anywhere else to go, and how to go about advertising the program prior to the opening of the application period.
