Quincy Chisholm was visiting his friend on Lucky Lane on a picture-perfect April morning. From Samuel Robinson’s front porch, Chisholm considered the effects left by the hailstorm that had battered this very house – and nearly every other one on this street – one year prior.
“When that storm came,” he said, “it was like a blessing.”
It hardly seemed so at the time. On April 20, 2024, hailstones measuring up to 2 inches fell on Rock Hill. Straight-line winds threw these chunks through windows and siding. The city’s Southside neighborhood – poor and historically Black – got the worst of the storm.
But while the immediate aftermath of the storm was devastating to roofs, cars, siding, windows, and trees, the storm’s violence also brought needed repairs to homes that often have been uninsured or neglected because their occupants couldn’t afford to fix them.
Now, a year later, repairs done through grants and donations have turned a once-redlined, oft-overlooked section of Rock Hill into a neighborhood of renovated homes. The city Housing Development Corp. (HDC) took $500,000 given by the State Legislature last June and repaired 50 houses (so far) on the Southside.
Another $441,000, from SC Housing, is in line to repair 37 more homes.
Meanwhile, Habitat for Humanity of York County used about $330,000 to mend 25 homes damaged by the storm, with more projects slated for the future.
“ A year later, I would say it definitely has helped a lot of individuals do maybe deferred maintenance that they were not doing,” said Corinne Sferrazza, executive director of HDC. “[Maybe] they just didn't have the funding, or they couldn't get assistance to do any of the services on their house, any of the rehab, or because they don't have insurance.”
The money from the State Legislature that Rock Hill got to address the storm came without a lot of restrictions, meaning HDC crews could find hard-hit properties and get right to work.
The money from SC Housing, on the other hand, has many stipulations – one being the need to have a living name on the deed before any repairs can begin. This is an issue for a big reason.
“A lot of the properties that we worked on were heirs properties,” Sferrazza said.
Heirs properties are generational properties for which there is no clear ownership.
This is where worries for the future start.
For one thing, while there’s no official count of heirs properties in Rock Hill, city officials acknowledge that there are several in Southside, and have floated developing a program to educate residents on how to get clean titles.
But for another thing, heirs properties are vulnerable to predatory buyers.
Tim Veeck, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of York County, said that properties without clean titles can end up in tax auctions without residents even knowing the property is on the selling block.
“The property may be worth significant more than what it's going for at the tax sale,” Veeck said. “And so, folks who are kind of opportunistic [can] acquire multiple properties at a very low price.”
And while city officials and Habitat workers are scrambling to keep heirs properties out of the hands of opportunists, newly renovated homes are proving to be catnip for investors looking to buy property in Southside, which is now getting a lot of attention for redevelopment.
“I get so fed up,” said resident Sophia Chisholm (no relation to Quincy). “It seems like two or three times a week somebody's calling, wanting to make an offer on my house.”
Chisholm calls the aggressive lobbying to buy the neighborhood’s newly repaired homes a “land grab” that, so far, her neighbors are resisting. She, herself, has plans to go nowhere, whatever the offers – which haven’t impressed her anyway.
“They're going to … dangle a carrot in my face to say, ‘Well, we'll give you this money,’” she said. “I'm almost 70 years old. You're going to give me enough money to get into another mortgage? Is that what you're offering me?”
Rock Hill is working to revitalize the Southside, through a set of projects that include 216 affordable units at the former Edgewood Elementary School, and seven other key projects known collectively as the Great 8.
Habitat has further projects on tap, aimed at addressing the number of homes in Southside without HVAC systems.
