Rome gets housing grant
The $612,000 will be used to build single-family homes on Pollock Street.
The $612,000 will be used to build single-family homes on Pollock Street.
Rome has received a $612,000 housing grant from the Georgia Department of Community Affairs and use the funds to build four homes in South Rome.
Community Development Director Bekki Fox said the funds will be utilized to build four ranchstyle single-family homes on Pollock Street.
The grant comes from DCA’s Community HOME Investment program. In 2014, Rome received a $641,000 CHIP grant which was used to construct five single-family homes on Wilson Avenue
in South Rome.
Four of those first five homes have successfully been sold to low to moderate income families.
Funds from the sale of those homes, along with those that will be constructed on Pollock
Street, will be pumped right back into the community for construction of more new quality, affordable housing.
Fox said that four lots on Pollock Street were chosen for the new grant.
“The lots are part of the property that was part of the old Curtis meat packing plant that was purchased by Greg Sumner and his investors,” Fox said. They in turn donated the property back to the city.
The four lots begin with one on the corner of Pollock Street and South Broad, then continue down the right side of Pollock Street toward the end of the South Rome levee.
Fox said that contractors have told her that the cost to the new homes will be higher than the $98,000-$99,000 which was the low bid from Pro-Active Contractors of Kingston for the first group of homes on Wilson Avenue.
The city will partner with the South Rome Redevelopment Corporation which will serve as the developer for the homes and receive a small fee from the grant.