HousingWorks RI - Woonsocket

Woonsocket

The facts:

$239,950: Price of the median single-family home sold last year
$1,931: Typical monthly payment for that house (including principal, interest, taxes and insurance)
$77,223: The income you need to afford that house
$1,040: Average rent for a 2-bedroom apartment
$41,600: The income you need to afford that apartment
$41,724: Average annual wage in Woonsocket***
2,664: Households in Woonsocket paying more than half their income for housing
3,092 (16.5%): Housing units that qualify as affordable

Click here for footnotes.

Affordable homes in Woonsocket:

Woodridge Estates

26 homeownership units clustered on a 10-acre parcel by the Woonsocket Neighborhood Development Corporation, with affordability preserved through a housing land trust

Heritage Place

Apartments, commercial space and a community learning center created by the Woonsocket Neighborhood Development Corporation

NeighborWorks Blackstone River Valley: Building community

Margaux Morisseau is the director of community building for NeighborWorks Blackstone River Valley, formerly the Woonsocket Neighborhood Development Corporation (WNDC). Under her watch, the formerly troubled Constitution Hill area has been revived and is now a vibrant, multi-generational neighborhood.

“Here at WNDC, we believe that it’s not just about building the houses, it’s about building community too. So anytime we build, we always try to incorporate community into the neighborhood. We have art centers, community centers, learning resources so the community can come together.

We want people to come together and meet each other and have the old fashioned-standard that it’s a whole village together raising all the children in the neighborhood. We have the elderly neighbors next door who will watch the kids when they get off the bus until the parents get home.

We have a lot of cookouts, a lot of get-togethers. In the summer we have an outdoor movie night. We put up a big movie screen and we play a family-friendly movie. All the neighbors come out of their houses and put a blanket on the lawn, pop popcorn and have an inexpensive night out with their neighbors -- just getting together. So that’s really what we try to focus on doing -- providing a community experience.”