JACKSON, Mich. — Jackson was one of eight cities nationwide awarded $450,000 through a Housing and Urban Development planning grant. That money will help low-income housing.
Through the grant, the city of Jackson and the Housing Commission will work with local residents and other stakeholders to create a plan to redevelop the Reed Manor property which contains 292 low-income housing units.
The planning team will use approximately $176,000 to develop an “early action project” this summer to get the ball rolling, according to Housing Commission Executive Director Laurie Ingram.
“I’m really excited to start talking in the neighborhoods and talking to people about what we can do in Jackson that is very Jackson-centric, Jackson specific and not a replication of something that has been done elsewhere,” she said.
The housing commission says the grant will help them create a road map for how to address affordable housing in the city.
Accoording to a press release, the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative is focused on “three core goals,” which include housing, people and neighborhoods.
“What we did is we chose an area surrounding Reed Manor that needs some revitalization,” said Ingram. “We made sure to include certain landmarks that were important to us including the Interfaith Shelter, Partnership Park, the area surrounding Jackson High School including our neighbors here surrounding Reed Manor where we felt like we could get some neighborhood engagement and make the most impact for the neighbors who are most closely impacted by living close to Reed Manor.”
That area stretches from Franklin Street to South West Avenue to Cooper Street to Ganson Street.
The plan will seek to replace all of the Reed Manor units, spreading them across new mixed-income developments within the neighborhood and elsewhere.
Ingram spoke with tenants and heard a “litany of good ideas” of how to redevelop Reed Manor.
“A lot of it comes through very clearly in terms of wanting lots of green space, wanting lots of outdoor space, wanting to see a lot of modernization that has been developed in other market rate housing with the same thing you and I would want to see in our homes like dishwashers, washer and dryer access and other things that don’t exist in these buildings because they were built in the 1950s,” Ingram added.
Ingram says Jackson was one of the smaller cities awarded the grant.
The other cities include: Annapolis, Maryland; Augusta, Georgia; Brownsville, Texas; Las Vegas, Nevada; Los Angeles, California; McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, and Richmond, Virginia.
Officials say it will take about two years to create the downtown Jackson Choice Neighborhood Plan.
“As we envision, design and seek to implement the investment and physical changes necessary to revitalize the community, local residents will be engaged from day one so that they can help to assume a leadership role in the process,” Ingram said.
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