CHA to take part in community development program
The Calhoun Housing Authority (CHA) is one of five entities recently selected to receive assistance with community housing needs through the Georgia Initiative for Community Housing (GICH), a public-private program that helps communities strategically grow their economies through housingrelated solutions. The threeyear program is set to begin in February 2021.
CHA Executive Director Gail Brown said being selected to take part in the program is an especially big honor for the authority because GICH typically selects cities to participate, rather than housing authorities. The other entities in this year’s cohort include the cities of Blakely, Jonesboro, East Point and Covington.
“Getting accepted into this program is incredibly competitive and we are so excited that they chose us,” Brown said. “I don’t know that they have ever had a housing authority participate before, so we are both nervous and very excited to get started.”
The program includes training and technical instruction delivered during a series of conferences, assistance with community-housing teams design and discussion of how to best implement strategies to enhance local economies as well as quality of life for citizens in participating communities. During the sessions, teams will work with and receive continuous feedback from a facilitator or housing professional, as well as engage in cross-community collaboration. Upon completion of the program, Brown said the housing authority would benefit from special grant consideration.
“We would be a lot more competitive after completing the program because it will bump us up a point, so to speak. With grants being as competitive as they are, that one point makes a big difference,” Brown said. “Some of the other benefits are that our GICH team can meet with other cities who have graduated from the program and learn from what they have done in the past. We’re interested in doing things like citywide clean-ups and new builds, which they have done, so there’s a lot we could learn.”
GICH teams, which help decide projects and establish community relationships, consist of about 12 members and include representatives from local government and businesses, nonprofit housing organizations and the local public housing authority. They may also include members of local faith-based organizations and churches, development authorities, chambers of commerce, school systems, major employers and law enforcement. Brown said Calhoun’s GICH team is still being put together but will definitely include city builders and representatives from the Gordon County Chamber of Commerce.
A meeting will be held later this month to establish the local team and discuss potential projects, though Brown said any discussion of projects would very much be in the early stages.
Since the GICH program’s inception in 2005, 81 Georgia communities have benefited from its offered assistance. The communities currently enrolled in the program are Arlington, Centerville, Conyers, Social Circle, Smyrna, Adel, Hartwell, Ocilla, Rossville/Lafayette
and Statesboro. The cities of Byron, Cochran, McRae-Helena, Norcross and the joint collaborative of Troup County, Hogansville, LaGrange and West Point were recognized at the GICH Fall Retreat in September as 2020 graduates of the program.
GICH is a collaboration of partners including the University of Georgia’s Housing and Demographics Research Center, a unit of the Department of Financial Planning, Housing and Consumer Economics in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences; UGA’s Office of the Vice President for Public Service and Outreach; the Georgia Department of Community Affairs; and the Georgia Municipal Association, a voluntary, non-profit organization based in Atlanta that provides legislative advocacy, educational, employee benefit and consulting services to its 521 member cities.
Georgia Power funds the GICH program. Additional in-kind services are provided by UGA Cooperative Extension and UGA’s Archway Partnership and the Carl Vinson Institute of Government, both units of the UGA Office of Public Service and Outreach. Learn more about GICH online.