Foundation gets grant to help 8 families
KCaulder@CalhounTimes.com
New Foundations Development Inc. announced on Monday that it had received a $109,000 grant from the United States Department of Agriculture and its Office of Rural Development. The funds will go toward assisting eight low income families in Gordon County with home repairs and improvements.
New Foundations is a nonprofit created by the Calhoun Housing Authority. Since its origins in 2012 the organization has helped to renovate more than 200 homes in Gordon and Bartow counties. Most of its efforts have been focused on veterans and their family homes, but this new grant will allow them to branch out from that demographic.
“This is the first time New Foundations has received the Housing Preservation Grant, which is not exclusive to veterans only, like some of our other grants, but to all very low income families in Gordon County’s designated USDA eligible areas,” said Gail Brown, executive director of the Calhoun Housing Authority. “We are excited that the Housing Preservation Grant will help us serve a few more families and help them to live in safe and affordable housing.”
GRANT,
Carol Hatch, the program coordinator for New Foundations, said three of the eight families selected to receive help from the USDA grant are veteran’s families. Five are not. The five civilian families were previously on a waiting list in the hopes of receiving assistance, she said. It wouldn’t have been possible without this grant funding.
“I would say something like 95% of the homes we’ve worked on have been for veterans. We’ve gotten very few grants that weren’t specifically for vets, so it’s exciting to be able to help some of the other people who’ve been waiting for a while,” Hatch said.
Improvements that can be completed under this grant include things like repairing
or replacing electrical wiring, foundations, roofs, insulation, heating systems and water or waste disposal systems, and installing handicap accessibility features. Hatch said the work will be completed by local contractors and overseen by a county inspector.
“They come out and assess the property before we get started to see what the needs are, and they come back out after we’ve finished up to make sure all the work has been completed correctly,” she said.
Though the grant has helped to offset costs for the eight selected families, Hatch said New Foundations is always looking for assistance from donors and outside agencies. Anyone looking to donate funds or partner with the organization can drop in to the Calhoun Housing Authority, located at 607 Oothcalooga St., to speak with Hatch.