JACKSONVILLE, Fla. —
Several organizations are helping and empowering people to buy a home. Five locals making a difference in the community will get the opportunity to own a home in Jacksonville’s Historic Eastside neighborhood.
“It’s the ultimate investment. To re-invest in our marginalized communities,” said Dr. Rudy F. Jamison, Ed. D, Director of the Urban Education Scholars Program and Assistant Director at the Center for Urban Education and Policy at the University of North Florida’s College of Human Resources and Human Services..
For Jamison, it’s the chance to come back to his old stomping grounds and make a difference.
”I don’t know of it happening, people moving back to their old neighborhoods,” he said.
Known as Project Boots, this program has financial incentives for professionals like Jamison to move out east - and help transform the neighborhood.
”Too often, the decisions that are made about, for and to these marginalized communities are made by individuals who don’t live, play, or worship in these communities,” Jamison explained.
Local Initiatives Support Corporation in Jacksonville (LISC) has teamed up with LIFT Jax and the Historic Eastside Community Development Corporation to chip in for the down payment and closing costs of these homes so they can be built on vacant lots in the area.
”Homeownership has historically been key to creating generational family wealth,” said Dr. Irvin Cohen, LISC Jacksonville’s Executive Director.
For one year, these neighbors must attend homeowner training sessions and meet a monthly savings requirement, which the program will math. At the end of it, they’ll have a brand new home.
To protect the legacy of the Historic Eastside, LIFT Jax is in the process of restoring 20 homes there, and working for it to be designated on the National Register of Historic Places.
The goal is to create “healthier, safer, neighborhoods for not only the people that are moving in but the existing residents as well,” Jamison said.
For more information about LISC Jacksonville, visit www.lisc.org/jacksonville.