MEMPHIS, Tenn. — After decades of struggle, blighted homes all across inner-city Memphis receiving a much-needed boost Monday as the city announced the first investments from its affordable housing trust fund.
The city gave out $913,000 to proven rehab and construction organizations from Orange Mound to Frayser.
Mayor Jim Strickland said the money will be used “to rehab and construct multi-family and single family housing in our city, for people that just can’t afford it.”
The goal is to address blighted homes for low-income Memphians, and the payoff is bigger than a surface-level fix.
“We are helping raise the values in the community by coming in and helping homeowners that aren’t able to keep up some of the ongoing maintenance and repairs that it takes to keep up values in neighborhoods,” said Charia Jackson, deputy director of the Frayser CDC.
The city will be taking more applicants in 2020.
The assistance organizations apply to the city for the funds, while neighborhood groups and residents help to explain where the money would be most effective.
“These organizations will then work with the neighbors in the neighborhood about which individual units need to be helped,” Strickland said.
Individual homeowners are not eligible to apply for the grants, but developers, Community Development Corporations, and Community Housing Development Organizations focused on addressing the housing needs of households that earn up to 80% of Area Median Income are invited to apply. Click here for more.
