Woman gets first indoor bathroom

OUTHOUSE IS OUT -- Carpenters move a ready-made bathroom into position with a crane at Cladie McSwain's home on Searcy Road Ext. in Seagrove on Wednesday. The project was funded by the Safe Housing Initiative, run under the N.C. Rural Communities Assistance Project. (Clifton Hughes / The Courier-Tribune)

SEAGROVE - From outhouse to indoor bathroom was a dream come true for Seagrove resident Cladie McSwain.

McSwain recently found herself the recipient of a new bathroom, compliments of the N.C. Rural Communities Assistance Project, Inc. (NCRCAP), based in Pittsboro.

"We heard about a friend of hers at church getting a bathroom from them," said McSwain's daughter, Listeen Headen of Asheboro. "They had put in a bathroom for her and another man at the church, too. We called about it and it's taken a while to get it here, but it's been worth it."

NCRCAP's Safe Housing Initiative (SHI) program is designed to address the severe housing needs of very low-income households in Chatham and Randolph counties.

Its primary focus is to work with families currently living without indoor plumbing, a protected water source and/or an appropriate means of wastewater disposal. To this end, NCRCAP provides services such as housing rehabilitation, construction of bathroom additions, installation of septic systems and wells, and assistance with accessing federal low-interest loans and grants.

Since the start of the program, NCRCAP has assisted almost 30 households and is currently working with eight families to eliminate the health and safety hazards posed by substandard housing.

McSwain's bathroom unit, built by students at Central Carolina Community College, was moved from the school's Siler City campus to McSwain's home in mid-February. Although it still needs to be wired and a doorway made that will join the addition to the main part of the house, the bathroom should be complete and ready for use by the end of March.

"It's taking a long time, but I've been patiently waiting," McSwain said. "They sure have been nice to us."

Gaby Fornari, the project coordinator for NCRCAP, has worked with 80-year-old McSwain to do several much-needed repairs on her home.

"We have installed vinyl windows in her home, replaced a door and done some floor repairs and a little roof repair," Fornari said. "We partnered with Regional Consolidated Services and to put some insulation in the attic."

With limited funding sources available to address housing rehabilitation in rural areas, NCRCAP has created a network of partners and resources to further expand the capacity of the Safe Housing Initiative program. Primary funding for completing the rehabilitation work came from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Housing Preservation Grant Program. Other key partners included Central Carolina Community College, Chatham County, Joint Orange Chatham Community Action, Randolph County, Regional Consolidated Services, Southeast Rural Community Assistance Project, and numerous professionals and companies who provided donations of materials, charged reduced rates for services or volunteered their time.

"We focus on eliminating health and safety hazards in the home," Fornari said. "Several of our projects do include bathroom additions. I had hoped the 8 foot-by-12-foot bathroom unit (for McSwain) would be moved from Siler City to Seagrove in November. However, weather and the volunteers' health prevented that. I finally hired someone to do the job and it is going on now.

"Cladie has been great to work with. She has been waiting a long time for this."

For more information about the Safe Housing Initiative program, call (919) 542-7227, email at <ncrcap@ncrcap.org> or visit the website at .