Ruth Wise, Executive Director, New Road Community Development Group of Exmore, Inc."The way we look at it is we’re not building houses, we’re building a community."
- Ruth Wise, Executive Director, New Road Community Development Group of Exmore, Inc.
Until 2000, in the New Road neighborhood of Exmore, Va., 85 percent of approximately 300 African-American residents had no indoor plumbing. Residents collected water from outdoor spigots and used outdoor pit privies. Poor soil conditions and a high water table prohibited the installation of individual septic systems. In the early 1990’s, the Accomack Northampton Planning District Commission had proposed a regional sewage treatment facility for the town of Exmore. Nonetheless, the plan was rejected after it was opposed by a group of the town's residents – all of whom had private septic systems. The Exmore town council argued that the facility would be too costly, but many residents of New Road believed that opposition to the sewage treatment facility had more to do with race and class than finance. Most residents of New Road are poor African Americans working in the poultry, agricultural, and seafood industries, fast foods, and domestic services.
“A decade ago, we realized that unless we stood up and spoke out for ourselves the New Road community would enter the next century under the same living conditions,” says Wise. The NRCDG, organized in the fall of 1992, was originally an informal group of community residents that banded together to demand that local government officials provide indoor water and sewer services. “We came to understand that if our efforts to bring a sewer system to the community succeeded, the greater benefit would accrue to two landlords who owned three-fourths of the houses. Their property values would greatly increase, but most of the residents would still be renters. We struck upon the ‘wild’ idea of buying out the two landlords.”
With the help of The McAuley Institute, a Silver Spring, Maryland-headquartered organization that helps poor people build their communities, New Road devised an $8 million Comprehensive Community Revitalization Plan. Its three components were housing, economic and human/community development – with sewer and infrastructure development as a central focus. In the summer of 1995 with a loan from McAuley, NRCDG closed on the purchase of the properties from the two landlords – which included the dilapidated houses as well as 15 acres of farmland and woods. Wise’s organization subdivided and sold this land to residents so that they could become homeowners. Since then, NRCDG has overseen the installation of a community-wide sewer system; arranged employment opportunities for unemployed community residents; sold 16 lots to first-time homebuyers; rehabbed 10 units for new and existing homeowners with indoor plumbing and heating; constructed 12 new units; and received one of the top 2000 Best Practices Awards from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.