George Irby, interim planning and community development director, plans to make a list of potential home buyers next week and hopes to start building their new homes by January.
Irby is inviting anyone who is interested in purchasing newly-constructed, affordable housing in the city to attend a public meeting at 6 p.m. Monday at the Municipal Complex, located at 1501 Main St.
The meeting will provide an open forum for residents to ask questions about the city’s blight remediation program and to learn about the city’s redevelopment plans, which involve building new houses on the demolished blighted properties.
“We’re trying to get ahead of the game and find people that would be interested in moving in some of those areas, and work with them to be creditworthy to be able to get a mortgage and purchase those houses,” Irby said. “This will be our first little venture to see if there are a number of people out there that’s interested that we could start working with.”
The blight remediation program, funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, is designed to address deteriorating properties in the city.
The city plans to purchase the blighted structures, demolish them and then work with the Mississippi Home Corporation to build affordable housing on the cleared lots.
The city has secured $6 million in federal funding to purchase lots and remove blighted structures.
Irby has dubbed the housing redevelopment as the Building a Future Home initiative.
Irby said the Mississippi Home Corporation has committed about $1.5 million in a revolving loan fund to lend money to homebuilders. Homebuilders will then build homes at 0% interest, and wouldn’t have to start making loan payments for three years.
But before any homes are built, Irby needs to see enough people take interest in the program.
“We won’t do any building until we at least have some potential buyers,” Irby said. “… This meeting is to give information to any citizen interested in buying a house … and to try to get some bodies interested.”
Irby hopes to see between 25 and 30 interested potential homebuyers attend the meeting. He also plans to organize educational sessions for those interested to learn ways to boost their credit and save money to purchase the homes.
Though Irby’s plans for these sessions aren’t yet solidified, Mayor Stephen Jones said those learning opportunities would be beneficial to interested homebuyers.
“It’s going to be a challenge getting people into some of those (houses),” Jones said. “So anything that we can do as a city to try to help people own homes, we would rather be doing that than building houses for them to rent. … Home ownership is definitely important to stability.”
It will be a few months before community members see blighted homes being demolished, Irby said. Though he hopes to see the first new house being built by January. Afterward, Irby said, he hopes to see at least five or six houses built each year until the program’s 2031 completion deadline.
Jones said the program will be very beneficial once things start moving forward.
“I think it will be a great program once we get everything moving and rolling on it,” Jones said. “We’ve just got to get people interested.”
In a press release, Irby said the Building a Future Home initiative is about more than just constructing houses.
“We believe in building a brighter future for the citizens of Columbus – one home, one neighborhood, one family at a time,” Irby said in the release. “This initiative is about more than just housing; it’s about hope, opportunity and community transformation.”
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