BENEFITS

Core Values

• Commitment to individuals, families and communities
  
  
• Responsible; Openness
  
  
• Inspire individuals, families and communities to action
  
  
• Honesty and integrity
  
  
• Respect and patience
  

Core Purpose

 

Value-Added Benefits

CHALLENGES
Many challenges and opportunities faced by individuals, families and communities cannot be easily or immediately addressed as the need arises. For example:

A self-sufficency model of a holistic approach.

Understand community, family and/or individual need(s).

Cooperatively prioritize and develop a plan of action to address need(s).

Leverage available resources to provide viable solution(s) to address need(s).

1.

The City of Conyers, located in Rockdale County, in the State of Georgia USA, is engaged in a Strategic Development Enterprise. This Enterprise is designed to ensure the future population and business growth of the city while maintaining its cultural and historic heritage; enhancing the quality of life for its residents and visitors; and ensuring that environmental concerns are addressed. This public private partnership includes a comprehensive redevelopment study including the lifelong community charrette and the livable centers initiative sponsored by the Atlanta Regional Commission. Designed to address an all inclusive consideration of the physical and human infrastructure of The City of Conyers, the Enterprise focuses on new urban concepts as it relates to an aging population.

The Development Enterprise for Conyers will design neighborhood(s) that have access to desirable infrastructure and amenities such as schools, churches, parks, stores, and businesses. Further, transportation such as: public transportation, roads, highways, sidewalks, bicycling, parking and pedestrian experiences will be important elements of the Enterprise.

Transition tenants from subsidize housing to self-sufficiency by providing affordable housing through IECDG, Inc holistic community approach.

Conyers, Georgia will conserve both built and social resources by reinvesting in existing Infrastructure and revitalizing their historic downtown community and its buildings, while ensuring that all of its residents have affordable housing and the Infrastructure needed to sustain and/or enhance their existing quality of life.

The Project provides informational documents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) at school PTA meetings and other school community functions to initiate contact and expose citizens to the free literature.

IECDG utilizes Fulton County High School J.R.O.T.C. units as a volunteer community service pool for brochure hand outs and community sign up for collective community audiences to initiate advance training on how to develop a community disaster readiness shelter.

The project futher addresses aspects of financial literacy before during and after disaster through partnership with Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) utilizing its online modular Money Smart Program.

The NSP program requires multiple steps: environmental reviews of all properties; handling and proper allocating of the grant money; proper appraising of all property values; purchasing and selling the properties and doing the actual rehabilitation or construction.

Randy Vinson, interim planning and zoning director for Covington, said the city is planning to do its NSP work in the Jefferson Village, Green Acres, Nelson Heights and other neighborhoods. Senior Planner Scott Sirotkin said the county is still planning to purchase its first property by late summer or early fall. The city's first purchase of property will be in the Sterling Lake neighborhood, off Flat Shoals Road and is in the beginning stages of purchasing a second property. The city received $458,000 in NSP money and is partnering with the local Habitat for Humanity.

After interviewing and researching the candidates, the planning department settled on the non-profit Independent Educational Community Development Group (IECDG) as its partner. Sirotkin said the county chose IECDG because they could do both grant administration and asset management, were a local, non-profit company and were willing to sign on for a multiple-year timeframe with the county.

Sirotkin said the number of properties purchased would depend on the negotiated prices and the costs of rehabilitation. Out of the $1.74 million, $1.1 million will be used to purchase properties, and the rest will be sued to rehabilitate properties and help families make down payments for houses. All of the $1.75 million must be used to help families that make 120 percent or less of the area media income, $85,400 for a family of four, and at least $435,000 must be used to help families that make 50 percent of less of the area median income, $35,600 for a family of four.