It’s an eyesore seen in towns throughout the nation: A small house sitting on a corner in a depressed part of town. If the windows aren’t boarded over, they’re broken. The paint has faded and the porch is falling in. It may be a haven for drug users or other criminal enterprises. Local residents ask again and again why it can’t be bulldozed to make room for a new home.
To city managers throughout Georgia these houses are ongoing nightmares, but they’re just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the housing issues they face on a daily basis. Housing issues that can make a difference in whether a community prospers.
“Quality, affordable housing is critically needed for Georgia’s families,” according to Tom Rodgers (Professor Emeritus, Housing and Consumer Economics). “But Georgia communities have to simultaneously respond to the problems of substandard and dilapidated housing and deteriorating neighborhoods.”
Since 2004, the Georgia Initiative for Community Housing has provided Georgia communities a systematic way to answer those needs through twice yearly, facilitated retreats that also allow time for the sharing of ideas on subjects as diverse as building codes, land banks and detailed information on federal and state housing-related programs.
The idea for GICH grew out of the National League of Cities’ Affordable Housing Program, which identifies several communities in a state to participate in an 18-month program.
“When that program ended, we realized that you can make a great start in 18 months, but to really make progress, cities need three years to determine what needs to be done in their communities and to begin implementing those programs,” Rodgers says.
Lead by faculty in the FACS Housing and Demographics Research Center, GICH partners also include the Georgia Municipal Association and the Georgia Department of Community Affairs. Funding for the program has been provided by the Georgia Power Co., the Wachovia Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development, while the Georgia Electric Membership Corp. and the UGA Archway Partnership Program have provided program support.
2005 marked the kickoff for GICH with the selection of its first class of communities—Cartersville, Fort Valley, Sylvester, Thomasville, Valdosta and Waycross.
Additional communities have been chosen annually. The 2006 class consists of Camden County, Dalton-Whitfield County, Hall County, Moultrie, and Waynesboro. The 2007 class includes Colquitt, Metter, Milledgeville, Newnan and Tifton. The newest class, which attended their first retreat in February, includes Calhoun, Cordele, Douglas, Griffin, and Toccoa.
To be chosen for GICH, communities must develop a team that includes a broad representation of the community, including city officials, local builders, bankers, business owners, representatives of non-profit groups and others who are interested in addressing housing issues. Finalists receive a day-long site visit that includes meetings with the housing team and tours of the community. Those who participate in the site visits make recommendations to GICH’s selection committee and five communities are chosen based on their housing needs and their expressed readiness to participate.
“Primarily we want to know who all they’ve included on their team and how serious they are about committing their time and energy to making changes in their community,” according to Karen Tinsley, GICH coordinator.
The first GICH “graduates” were recognized at the August 2007 retreat in Dalton and included Valdosta and Cartersville, two of the program’s success stories.
“When you’re in the business of neighborhood redevelopment, housing is the issue,” says Mara Register, Valdosta’s assistant to the city manager “GICH was particularly helpful to us because we already were four years into our neighborhood redevelopment efforts when we were chosen. What we wanted to determine was, is what we’re doing working?”
Valdosta has set the ambitious goal of eliminating all substandard housing within the city by 2020. Already, it has demolished 442 substandard houses and brought 301 up to current building code requirements. One hundred families have received help with down payments through the Community Home Improvement Program and Community Development Block Grant Entitlement funding.
The city already has completed revitalization plans for four of its 17 neighborhoods and is in the process of drafting plans for four additional neighborhoods. As each plan is developed, the Valdosta GICH team determines how to accomplish the changes that are needed. In particular, Valdosta has worked closely with Habitat for Humanity and the Group Workcamps Foundation, a nonprofit organization that brings as many as 500 youth and adult leaders to communities around the nation with the express purpose of repairing homes.
Group Workcamp has spent a week in Valdosta each of the past three summers, repairing a total of 144 houses, according to Register.
Although plans are under way for Group Workcamp to continue coming to Valdosta, Register says a group of concerned citizens are advocating for an ongoing, local version of the program that would allow a systematic way for repairs to be identified and completed by local volunteers on the homes of those who couldn’t afford them otherwise.
The Valdosta-Lowndes County Habitat for Humanity affiliate has built more than 125 houses since it began in 1988. More recently, Habitat and the city have worked together closely as dilapidated houses are torn down and new Habitat houses are built on the sites. (Nationwide, Habitat affiliates face the challenge of finding affordable, buildable lots. The Valdosta-Habitat partnership helps address that issue.)
Nearly 300 miles north of Valdosta, the city of Cartersville provides additional GICH success stories. Director of Community Services Pete Alday tells of the revitalization that has taken place around the Booth Western Art Museum, located on the northern end of downtown Cartersville.
“When we joined GICH we identified the North Towne area as our focus,” Alday says. “It was an area in transition that included a lot of substandard rental property.”
Alday says the Cartersville team’s first trip to a GICH retreat set the tone for the group.
“That first meeting helped us really get focused,” he says. “We listed a bunch of things that needed to get done. Since then, we’ve had great participation in our projects from local builders remodeling apartments and providing infill development that’s taking place on lots that had dilapidated structures.”
The Cartersville GICH team also worked with the Hispanic community to develop a community association for the neighborhood.
“We used to host monthly meetings, but not anymore because the community association is now taking the lead and going strong,” Alday says.
The Cartersville GICH team has received grants to conduct a housing inventory and to create an urban redevelopment plan. It’s also looking into establishing a land bank, a quasi-government entity that acts as a legal and financial mechanism for transforming vacant, abandoned and tax-foreclosed property back to productive use.
“We’ve been exposed to boocoodles of tools,” Alday says. “We’ve learned so much from other communities that we hate to see our participation in GICH end, but I think with the momentum we have that we’ll continue to improve the housing situation in Cartersville.”
“Boocoodles” of tools is an essential element of what communities receive when they attend the retreats, according to Tinsley.
“The technical assistance provided by our partners is a unique aspect of GICH,” Tinsley says.
Representatives of the state Department of Community Affairs, the Georgia Power Co., the Georgia Electrical Membership Corp., and UGA’s Archway Partnership Program are among those who serve as facilitators for the individual community meetings. In addition, the retreats include speakers on specialized topics, such as establishing land banks, applying for grants, building codes and enforcement and other issues.
“The involvement of these partners has played a large part in GICH’s success,” Rodgers says. “Not only are they available during the retreats, but they remain on-call anytime a team needs advice or help.”
Jim Vaseff, an economic and community development specialist with Georgia Power, has been a facilitator at each of the retreats.
“The basic tenet that I use when talking about communities is that they all have common problems and unique situations,” he says. “The pattern of ownership in one community may be very different from the pattern in another town, but they all need to deal with issues of a lack of housing.
“There’s always a learning curve for the new communities,” he continues. “Part of our process is to move them through that learning curve quickly.”
Moving quickly toward solutions is clearly a goal for one of the newest communities to join GICH. In fact, by the end of the February retreat the Calhoun team had created a PowerPoint document complete with what they hope to accomplish over the next four years and a timeline to follow.
“The retreat helped us get it together in terms of what we want to do,” says Eddie Peterson, Calhoun’s city administrator. “We bumped into a couple of problems, but our GICH facilitator would go find out the answer or find someone who could find the answer.”
Calhoun’s plan focuses on the town’s West End Neighborhood, which contains a total of 57 structures, including six that have been identified for demolition and 15 that can be rehabilitated.
The next major step facing the Calhoun GICH team was an April 1 deadline to apply for a Community Development Block Grant that would provide funding for water and sewer development as well as rehabilitation funds. Emails were flying in the days after the retreat as team members concentrated their efforts on completing the grant application.
Peterson says a particular benefit of GICH was the opportunity to talk one-on-one with a variety of people in attendance and to leave with the emails and phone numbers of all of the participants.
“Everyone we talked to said, ‘Call me if you run into any bumps and I’ll either have the answer or I’ll help you find someone with the answer,” Peterson says. “I’ve been involved with government stuff since 1980 and I’ve never experienced anything like this.”