723 New York Street

City leaders looking to improve affordable housing options should be paying attention to what Marci Fransisco and Joe Bickford have been doing for some time now. Each year they rehabilitate an older property that has served its entire existence as an affordable house. Plenty of sweat equity, rehab knowledge and use of salvage materials help to ensure each house remains affordable as it is improved. When the work is done, they tackle the financing portion of our affordable housing problem. Many people cannot purchase a home because they lack funds for a downpayment or can’t qualify for a conventional mortgage. But Marci and Joe, once they find the person or family they wish to hand the house off to, work out a payment plan that allows them to buy the house on contract.

For Joe in particular, this year’s project at 723 New York returns full circle to where this financing lesson was learned. This was the family home in which he grew up. Parents Gene and Dessi were renting when the owner decided to sell. When Gene and Dessi expressed interest but lacked the funds, the owner allowed them to purchase it on contract.

Joe’s many hours of work on the project this year brought back some childhood memories. His dad would walk to work at the box factory near the river. Joe enjoyed playing near the river and on the New York School playground. He would run errands for his mother to the grocery store on 416 E 9th Street, where Marty Olson’s shop is now. Working this summer in the living room, he could picture Dessi sitting in her recliner by the window where she would watch the trains roll by. He could still smell her cooking as he worked on the chimney in the kitchen.

Family ties to this project were made even stronger as longtime collaborator Ernie Fantini decided towards the end to move back to Delaware to care for his mother.  Ernie had begun working alongside Marci and Joe in 1991 on recommendation from master stonemason Keith Middlemas, and had participated on virtually every one of their projects since then.

With the Habitat for Humanity ReStore right across the alley, salvage opportunities were easy and included the sink, tub, tile, lighting fixtures and more.

723 New York offers Lawrence history as well as family history. Along with the house one door south, it was moved from another location by Park Hetzel in 1958. Behind both houses sits an old stone barn where the aunt of Langston Hughes kept her dairy cow.

In an era when traditional affordable starting homes in Lawrence core neighborhoods are being torn down and replaced with new homes that are unaffordable for many, Marci and Joe are preserving affordable options and maintaining the historic structures and character of  those neighborhoods. We’re sure LPA isn’t the only one who wants to say “thanks”!