In February 2025, after learning he was ranked fourth in a housing lottery for a new home in Uniondale, Juan Kelly visited the empty lot on Uniondale Avenue where the house would eventually stand, bowed his head and prayed.
“Me being a church kid, I asked God to give me this house,” Kelly, a Long Island Rail Road employee, said. “I came in fourth — but I didn’t want the first three people to fail for me to get it. I prayed that God would give the first three people better opportunities and let me have this house.”
A few weeks later, that prayer was answered when Kelly became the owner of that newly built home, thanks to the Uniondale Community Land Trust’s affordable-housing program, the Uniondale Avenue Project. The nonprofit land trust was created in 2010, in response to the foreclosure crisis that hit the community particularly hard following the housing market collapse of 2008.
The Long Island Housing Partnership helped the land trust with the application and eligibility review process for the 125 applicants who completed the process before identifying a qualified buyer — Kelly. As it happened, the top three ranking applicants were unable to provide the necessary documents.
Kelly and his daughters, Jaylnn and Kimberly, moved into the home, across the street from the Uniondale Fire Department, on Feb. 19 — the Thursday before the official ribbon-cutting ceremony.
“I absolutely love the house,” Kelly said. “Of course, it’s going to take some getting used to. It’s a whole new area, a whole new world — but I’m eager to fit into the community and looking forward to being part of it.
“The land trust provided this opportunity,” he added. “I am absolutely grateful. But without God, none of this would have been possible for me.”
It is the first home Kelly, a resident of Queens, has ever owned. During the lottery process, he and his daughters lived with his sister-in-law. His wife died three years ago, he said, and the family had been through difficult times together.
At one point Kelly said, he even considered resigning from his job with the LIRR and moving with his brother to Charlotte, N.C., because living in New York had become too difficult.
“I’d have had to look for work, but it would have all been to just have some stability,” he said. “Although it helped me to save some money being with family, I just wanted my home for me and my daughters.”
Uniondale was particularly affected by the housing crisis that began 18 years ago. The community had a high concentration of subprime mortgages, which led to a wave of foreclosures and abandoned properties. Residents began exploring ways to stabilize neighborhoods and expand access to homeownership, and eventually creating the Uniondale Community Land Trust.
Under the shared-equity model used by land trusts, the organization retains ownership of the land, and a homeowner purchases the house itself at a reduced cost, helping keep housing affordable while still making it possible for a family to build equity.
Kelly bought his new home for $275,000, but in last February the estimated value, was $620,000. Anestoria Shalkowski, president of the land trust, said she believes its latest appraised value in November is much higher, close to $690,000.
In Uniondale, where the median home price was about $642,000 as of December, according to housing data cited by the land trust, homeownership is difficult, if not impossible, for many families. Shalkowski said the organization’s goal is to make ownership attainable for those who might otherwise be priced out of the market. The lottery, she said, offers applicants the chance to purchase a home “for a fraction of the going market rate.”
“Having a home creates stability — not only stability for the family, but it also creates stability for the community,” she said. “Renting is more for short term. There are a lot of people who rent because they have no other option.
“When you rent, what you’re doing is you’re paying somebody else’s mortgage,” Shalkowski added. “And at the end of the day, it’s almost the same as having a mortgage — maybe a little bit less.”
Kelly’s house was built using modular construction by Simplex Homes in Scranton, Pa., and transported to Uniondale in sections before being secured on its foundation. He and his family were there the day the house arrived, last March, and watched as it was constructed.
“I had never seen anything like that before,” he said. “To watch it come down the road and know it was going to be our house was amazing.”
Shalkowski said that a house on the site had burned down in the 1990s, and the land trust later acquired the parcel through the Nassau County Land Bank.
After the house was installed on the foundation, it needed several months of additional work before it was ready to be occupied.
For Kelly, the opportunity represents a major turning point. Owning a home, he said, provides the stability he had long hoped to give his family.
“I absolutely love it,” he said. “It’s a new area and a new beginning for us. I’m excited to be part of the community, and to make this house our home.”
