Peggy Wright's rant in a grocery store a few years ago is likely responsible, at least in part, for hundreds of thousands of dollars of rehabilitation efforts in her central Little Rock neighborhood.
Wright's complaints were overheard by at-large City Director Joan Adcock, who encouraged Wright to get involved in the Love Neighborhood Association, now run with just four active members.
Adcock also started going to the meetings, and what began with neighborhood cleanups and small, short-term rehabilitation projects -- like porch work for elderly residents -- has now turned into the city purchasing and fixing up homes.
The city set aside $230,000 in its general fund budget for the Love Neighborhood Revitalization Project. The funds are being used to purchase houses, rehabilitate them and then sell them to low-income buyers.
About $70,000 has been spent so far. Four homes have been purchased, and work has begun on them.
"When I moved over here in 1973, it was a nice neighborhood," said Wright, who is 70. "Then gangs moved in, and they destroyed the neighborhood. The older people died out. Their children didn't do anything with the properties. It became a bunch of boarded-up homes, burnt-out homes and weed lots everywhere. Then it was littered. Even still, people come over here and dump their stuff."
The neighborhood association applies for the city's $1,000 Love Your Block grant every year and uses it for litter cleanup. The organization donated trash cans decorated by youths and placed them along Charles Bussey Avenue to deter littering. It also has youths who are sentenced to community service to help pick up litter.
City street improvement funds have been used to add sidewalks and improve drainage in the area. There's ongoing construction on Asher Avenue that will replace a ditch with sidewalks.
The hope is that homeowners and private developers will see the city's efforts and join in.
Since January, 13 permits have been granted to private investors or homeowners to complete $213,000 in rehabilitation on structures in the Love neighborhood, Adcock said.
"The thing was always that if the city would get involved in these neighborhoods and put money into them, then private development is going to follow," Adcock said. "But it's important to note that the government cannot just say, 'We are going to do that neighborhood next.' It has to start with the community, with the neighborhood people coming together and saying what they want for their neighborhood."
She said residents of the Love neighborhood have "buy-in" through their input and their own efforts.
Wright said she hopes her neighbors, a lot of whom are renters, start getting more involved.
"I was 26 when I moved here. It has been a really bad place to be. It went from bad to worse. But now it's starting to look better. There are less and less shootings over here. We're just glad things are beginning to look better," Wright said.
The four active neighborhood association members clean up vacant lots through the city's weed-lot program and use proceeds to buy garden tools and equipment for a community garden that they set up at 2218 Valmar St.
Adcock is showing off the rehabilitation efforts to try to persuade Habitat for Humanity to build homes in the area with some grant money it expects to receive, the city director said.
If not Habitat for Humanity, Adcock wants to work with another development group.
"The city is not looking to make a profit," Little Rock Community Development Manager Kevin Howard said. "We're just looking to put someone in those houses that's a low- to moderate-income person and try to help them receive that home ownership and help them so they can have suitable living."
Howard manages the real estate portion of the revitalization project, finding structures in the neighborhood for possible city purchase.
He walked through the two-bedroom, one-bathroom house at 2218 S. Martin St. last week, pointing out work that the city has started after buying the house earlier this year.
Water, sewage and gas pipes have been replaced; a dilapidated addition at the back of the house has been torn out, and plans are to rebuild it; new electrical wires have been run through the house; and a new roof has been added.
The house will be fully renovated before the city tries to sell it.
Across the street sits a vacant lot next to a run-down house. The city has tried to buy that house, as well, but it hasn't had cooperation from the owner, Howard said.
In contrast, the property adjacent to 2218 S. Martin has a well-manicured lawn and kept-up house. Across the street from it, women sat on new front-porch chairs Friday morning with a view of their neighbor's lush garden.
Howard said he's seen private development spurred by government investment before, pointing to rehabilitation work the city does with federal grants through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Neighborhood Stabilization Programs.
"The key is to clean up the area as far as the lots, dilapidated properties and burned structures. Once you get those cleaned up and start doing development, people come in and start buying structures. You enhance the area. These things have to happen in order to revitalize the area," Howard said. "You see people starting to take pride in their homes."
Metro on 04/16/2017