About
Piedmont Housing Alliance is dedicated to improving financial outcomes for individuals and families by offering innovative affordable housing solutions. In doing this, we acknowledge the role real estate practices and laws have played in preventing Black Americans and others from building wealth in our service area and country. We stand ready to make intentional change to right these wrongs.
Home, Opportunity, Community, Respect, and Equity
At Piedmont Housing Alliance, our mission is to create affordable housing opportunities and foster community through education, lending, and equitable development. Our service area is Planning District 10, which consists of the counties of Albemarle, Greene, Fluvanna, Louisa, Nelson and the city of Charlottesville.
We take a holistic approach to community management, housing counseling and financial services and development looking at the many ways that a family or individuals can benefit from our services. All of this is done with acknowledgment that the housing space locally—as well as nationally—suffered for decades from unfair and unjust lending practices, discriminatory zoning laws and other practices at the systematic level that hindered progress.
Our approach and focus on equitable practices speak to our core values of home, opportunity, community, respect, and equity. These values guide our interactions with our clients, our partners and the greater community.
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Safe, affordable housing is a basic human right.
What We Do
Community Management: We currently manage 14 properties located in the city of Charlottesville and Albemarle and Nelson counties.
Lending Program: Our lending program is certified by the US Treasury as a Community Development Financial Institution (“CDFI”).
Development: Our development and redevelopment activity aims to preserve and increase the number of high-quality, affordable housing units in our area. We are certified as a Community Housing Development Organization (CHDO).
Housing Counseling: Our HUD-approved housing counseling program provides one-on-one coaching for home buying, credit improvement, debt reduction, savings programs, fair housing, and foreclosure prevention. We offer free classes in the community and are a Virginia Housing Development Authority-approved provider of First Time Homebuyer Education, required for access to financial assistance in homebuying. (A first-time homebuyer is defined as a buyer who has not owned a home for a period of three years prior to purchase.)
Our History
Piedmont Housing Alliance is the successor organization to the Thomas Jefferson Housing Improvement Commission (TJHIC), which was founded in 1983 by Jane Saunier as part of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission. TJHIC received designation as a Community Housing Development Organization (CHDO) by the state of Virginia and had four allied organizations: Charlottesville Housing Improvement Project (CHIP-now disbanded); Albemarle Housing Improvement Project (AHIP-now a separate non-profit); Jordan Development Corporation; and Midway Development Corporation.
In 1996, TJHIC joined together with the Charlottesville Housing Foundation, which had been founded in 1968 by Francis Fife, Delegate Mitch Van Yahres, Thomas J. Michie, Jr. and Robert Stroud. CHF brought substantial assets to the alliance, including land. At that time the organization took the name Piedmont Housing Alliance.
Support Our Work
Supporting affordable housing is support for greater food security, education, and financial outcomes for everyone.