Introducing The NEW FCDC Newsletter
Dear Friends and Supporters,
We are excited to be sharing with you our first, quarterly agency e-newsletter. Our main aim in sharing these periodicals is to keep you informed of and encouraged by the work happening within our agency itself, and also within the broader Frayser community. If this information is no longer relevant to you, please feel free to unsubscribe from our mailing list, but we hope that you will find as much to be excited about in these emails as we do.
Earlier this year, after working for the CDC for 14 years, most of that as head of the CDC’s housing counseling program, Charia Jackson was promoted to Deputy Director. Charia is a life-long Frayser resident who recently completed her Masters in City and Regional Planning from the University of Memphis (`18). This academic milestone was a way to enhance her years of community development experience with a strong academic foundation closely related to the housing and community development industry.
In March, at THDA’s annual Tennessee Housing Conference, the Frayser CDC was awarded The Neighborhood Stabilization Award. This award reflects the hard work of the agency in combating blight to stabilize the Frayser community. Additionally, Charia Jackson received the Vicki George Award of Excellence for her work in serving West Tennessee residents through the housing counseling program–promoting of home ownership education and counseling.
An update from our Executive Director:
Things are changing very fast in Frayser – almost entirely for the better. We all know that Frayser was hardest hit by foreclosures over the last 10 years. That resulted in plummeting values, and that resulted in far too many abandoned homes.
Frayser home values have risen faster in Frayser in the last 2 years than any other Memphis community. Blighted homes are being purchased and renovated all over the community, and as a result of our Home Ownership Campaign, the average number of new owners purchasing in Frayser has risen from 4 per month to 10 per month.
The Frayser CDC is building 10 new homes in the Rugby area. The first 3 homes – 3 bedroom, 2 bath – are already constructed on Whitney, and we hope to sell them for about $86,000, and we will help buyers qualify for various types of Down Payment Assistance. We will have 4 bedroom homes available later this year. Another builder is starting to build 4 bedroom homes in the Schoolfield area. They plan to sell them for $108,000. United Housing continues to have new homes at McLean and James for $135,000.
Down Payment Assistance is often available for potential buyers, available from THDA, the City of Memphis and various lenders. Refer to our homebuyer website, www.frayserhomes.org, or call Vee Turnage at 901.354.2668 for more information.
Apartment complexes across our community are undergoing reconstruction and uplift. Historically, apartment complexes have often been the most blighted properties in Frayser, but Idlewood at Watkins and Ontario, Bayou Square on Old Millington, Renaissance at Steele and Dellwood, Forest Park on Frayser Blvd., the Buena Vista on Trezevant at Frayser Blvd. are all undergoing improvements.
All of this new work – houses and apartments – will bring residents back to Frayser, help the schools, businesses and public transit prosper. Stay tuned. Things are looking up in Frayser.
-Steve Lockwood