LORAIN — A Livingston Avenue home will be on display 10:30 a.m. to noon today as Lorain County Community College students and the home’s owner pull back the curtain on a 15-month collaborative effort to rehabiltate the property.

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The homeowner, Sharon Cole, approached the city about a low-interest loan program the   city offers to help homeowners fix up their property, said Drake Hopewell, rehabilitation administrator with the city’s Community Development Department.

“She was ready to make it her home, but she needed financial assistance to get that done,” Hopewell said.

Inspections revealed the house needed more work that the owner-occupied rehab program’s guidelines could fund because of extremely high bids for the work.

Around the same time, LCCC approached the city about finding a project its construction and trades students in the college’s Engineering Technologies Division could work on to gain practical experience.

“The college told us they could provide the labor through this tradesman program,” Hopewell said. “It was like a field lab for (the students) to apply concepts and take what they were learning in the classroom and put it in a real-world setting.”

During the 15 months of work, students did demolition, plumbing, heating, electrical, carpentry and insulation work on the home, said Steve Sefchik, LCCC media relations coordinator.

Hopewell said the project didn’t just benefit Cole or the students — the city benefited as well.
“It’s neighborhood revitalization,” he said. “It’s improving a neighborhood one house at a time.”

This pilot collaboration with the college was such a success Hopewell said he expects to see another rehab project completed by students in the city’s future.

“I hope and believe that other projects may come about in a similar manner down the road as opportunities present themselves for further collaboration with the college,” Hopewell said.

Contact Alicia Castelli at 329-7144 or acastelli@chroniclet.com.

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