Local home trust helps yoga teacher open studio

Thanks to an organization that helps low-income homeowners live in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, a local yoga instructor opened the doors of his new studio last week.

Carrboro resident Ti Harmony started the Open Heart Yoga School on Tuesday. It’s something he might not have been able to do conveniently had he not been able to buy a home in the area.

Harmony said the school was only made possible because he purchased a home through the Community Home Trust, a private nonprofit organization that provides home ownership opportunities within the area to families who earn 80 percent or less of the local median income.

“It was either buy a house through them or move to the other side of Hillsborough,” Harmony said.

Robert Dowling, executive director of the trust, said without the organization, houses in Chapel Hill and Carrboro would be too expensive for many working-class people.

“Most of the people we serve work at UNC or the UNC hospitals,” Dowling said.

The organization, which has 145 houses in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, works under the county policy that requests that developers make 15 percent of the housing available to low-income families.

Buyers must meet income requirements before they can purchase through the trust, Dowling said.

Once approved, buyers sign a 99-year lease that guarantees them ownership and sets the annual appreciation of the house at 1.5 percent. Although homes can be passed on through families, owners are required to sell the house back through the trust so it can go to other low-income families one day.

Harmony, who has taught yoga for 17 years but has never before owned a studio, said he is excited for the opportunity to live and work in the Carrboro area, where housing prices would have prevented him from living close enough to own the studio.

Harmony co-owns the yoga school with Allison Dennis and said he hopes to spread the spiritual powers that yoga offers to the community.

“At its deepest, I think yoga is a way to see what’s there and what has always been there,” he said.

Harmony said the school was the product of hard work and help from community members.

“We got lots of support from people not even connected to the school,” he said.

Harmony and Dennis teach classes along with seven other instructors, and the program is funded by optional donations made by patrons, Harmony said.

“People pay what they can,” Dennis said. “You have to have a love in your heart and a willingness to share the joys of yoga with your students.”

And regardless of the economic climate, Harmony said he will continue to spread and promote the positive values yoga offers.

“It’s kind of like a map inward to discover places that you wouldn’t find in everyday life,” he said.



Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.