Story 19: Dianne’s Story, In Her Words
This powerful story is shared by our client, Dianne Ferriss, who has received down payment assistance and critical home repairs through INHS.
201 Second Street Rehab, 1980
In 1980 my husband and I were ready to buy a house. Having moved here to join the Cornell rowing program as the lightweight coach in 1976, we now had one child and were tired of commuting from Danby every day. The only house in our price range a realtor showed me was halfway to Elmira (or so it seemed) and I wanted to live downtown in a neighborhood with sidewalks. INHS was just finishing rehabbing a house in Ithaca’s Northside (only the second one) and I loved it! It was on the corner of Second & Monroe streets, had three bedrooms and a full bathroom on the second floor, a study off the living room, two front porches, and a new kitchen. The house had been built in 1889 (?), had a stone foundation and a dirt-floor basement. There was room in the kitchen for a washer and dryer, and there was a small back porch, making for easy dog-walking exit.
INHS helped us secure a bank loan. We paid $32,500. We moved in in the summer of 1980 when my son was about 9 months old, and he learned to walk on our ample slate sidewalks. I made curtains for all the bedrooms, and INHS invited bankers interested in learning about the business of rehabbing houses come and tour our home.
Forty-six years later I still live in my house. I now have two sons (and 2 grandsons), the house has been painted a couple of times, and there’s just one section of roof left to replace this summer. My husband is long gone and I took over the ownership on my own. When that happened in 1989, INHS stepped up in a huge way to help me maintain my home, providing a loan (which I still haven’t had to repay, although I will when the house is sold) to install 15 new double-pane windows, insulate the attic, replace the gas boiler, and many other little things that have kept my house livable.
I am very proud of my house and the other houses in this Northside neighborhood, which INHS has continued to help upgrade over the years. When one of my elderly neighbors sold INHS the lot on which she’d had a garden, they arranged to move a house from another part of town onto that vacant lot! They also added a duplex on another empty lot across the street. Many other folks on Second Street have renovated their homes over the years, planted lots of flowers, and generally upgraded our whole area with the continued help of INHS.
Happy 50th Birthday!
Dianne Ferriss
Homebuyer Class: In-Person, One-Day/All-Day June 20 in Auburn NY ($20 Special)
