21 Jun The Perfect Home for Three
Before buying her new home in Belair-Edison, Tanysha Simon had time to fall in love with the neighborhood. The mother of two works for the Baltimore City Department of Recreation & Parks and spent a lot of time working in the area before deciding to buy her first home here.
She worked in both Clifton Park and Herring Run Park and now lives right across the street from a playground she helped to build as a Recs & Parks employee. “I actually put that playground in when I was pregnant with my daughter,” says Tanysha, whose little girl is now a year old. She is eager to take both her 6-year-old son and her daughter there, knowing they’ll enjoy it even more because it’s “Mommy’s Playground.”
Living in a neighborhood where
children could play freely was one of many things Tanysha liked about Belair-Edison. She also checked out the schools and found there were options available for her son; the crime rate was lower than in many city neighborhoods, and there was plenty of parking.
While working in the area, she also learned that the neighbors were interested in what was going on around them. They’d often come up to the Recs & Parks team to find out what they were working on and what was happening next. Their concern for the neighborhood was another good sign.
Tanysha has since been promoted to a supervisory position and moved to Cylburn Arboretum, so she no longer works in the area, but as a homeowner, she’s not surprised that her neighbors have been very welcoming.
“The house was vacant,” she says, so the neighbors were pleased to see that someone had bought it. It had also been completely rehabbed, making it a perfect choice for the busy mother.
Tanysha’s home was renovated by St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center, a nonprofit that buys and renovates foreclosed properties in Baltimore City. Knowing the quality of their work, she had been looking for a St. Ambrose house and had actually looked at another one on Shannon Drive, but it sold before she could make an offer. She’s thrilled with the home she now has, noting that it was so clean when they moved in, “there wasn’t a speck of dust in sight.”
As a first-time homebuyer, Tanysha participated in classes offered by Belair-Edison Neighborhoods Inc. (BENI), the neighborhood organization, and received counseling from them. She also received down-payment funds towards the home purchase as a Baltimore City employee.
She says there were highs and lows along the way to homeownership, but she’s very happy she made the decision and stuck with it. “My mother told me to be patient and she was right,” Tanysha says. “When I’m driving from work and I’m almost home, I start to get excited,” she says. “I just can’t wait to put my key in the door.”