The grant will allow the Albany department to fund education programs for residents of its 14-county coverage area, Senior Housing Counselor B.J. Jackson-Burton said.

“That’s what I’ve been doing (today) is setting our schedule for the next 12 months for what classes were going to be doing,” she said Friday after receiving news from Bishop’s office of awarding of the grant.

The only disappointment Jackson-Burton had was that the department only got $45,307 of the $100,000 it requested, she said. Nevertheless, the department will make the most of the funding it did get, Jackson-Burton said.

The Department of Community Development focuses on both getting badly qualified regional residents find homes they can afford and teaching them how to better budget their finances to make adequate payments on their homes, as well as keep their credit good, Jackson-Burton said.

The department helped about 1,000 people last year to find homes or better budget to make payments for their homes, about 60 percent of whom were from Dougherty County, she said.

The average income for the county is about $44,000, and the department usually helps people who make anywhere from 30-120 percent of that figure, Jackson-Burton said. But since the department is publicly funded, it won’t turn down service to anyone, she said.

“It’s a public service, regardless of where you fall at on the scale,” she said.

Bishop, D-Albany, said the grants are important because they help afford the opportunity to people who aren’t well qualified for home ownership to own a home.

“Basically, home ownership is the bedrock of the American dream, and what these grants are designed to do is really make it possible for more Americans to have and to keep a home,” he said.

Redemption Ministries Inc. in Thomasville also received a grant for $20,000 for similar programs, according to the news release from Bishop’s office.

JOSHUA BROWN joshua.brown@.at.albanyherald.com

http://www.albanyherald.com/stories/20071006n3.htm

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