Whitfield County moves forward with low-income home repairs
Feb. 1—Whitfield County officials Monday selected the first five low-income homeowners who could receive help with home repairs from a new grant received by the county.
Board of Commissioners Chairman Jevin Jensen and Commissioner John Thomas drew five numbers from a bag that correspond to homeowners who met the criteria for the program — at least age 62, low income and who own their own home.
The repairs will be funded from a $400,000 grant from the Georgia Department of Community Affairs, which administers the state's federal Community Home Investment Program (CHIP). The qualifying income level depends on the number of people living in the house.
The program had 111 applicants. Of those, 20 qualified for the program. Commissioners drew numbers corresponding to five of those individuals. But the number of homes repaired could be more or less than that, depending on the costs of the repairs. The money will be considered a loan that will be forgiven at the end of five years.
"If we have something like a roof replacement, that could be expensive," said Reed Fincher, executive director of the Dalton-Whitfield Community Development Corp., which is administering the program.
Whitfield County Grant Administrator Carol Roberts said the next steps will be confirming that the five people whose numbers were drawn meet the qualifying criteria and to have a building inspector do a preliminary inspection to make sure the homes do not need a complete teardown and rebuild.
"The county is not going to do a complete teardown-rebuild because there's not enough money for that," she said. "Assuming all of that works out well, and the people are still comfortable, because there is a lien against the home for five years, then we do a full inspection to determine what needs to be done to bring the home up to code. From there, the work is given to contractors. It's sort of a long process, but it's worth it."
