Greene County Habitat for Humanity broke ground in Greensboro on Oct. 16 on its Baynes Creek subdivision.
The ceremony took place at 1310 Oconee Ave. to mark the beginning of construction for the mixed-income housing development.
According to a recent Habitat for Humanity press release, Baynes Creek has passed a funding milestone, reaching a $2.5 million grant. OneGeorgia Authority, which is a part of Gov. Brian Kemp’s Rural Workforce Housing Initiative, awarded the scholarship to the local nonprofit.
The statement additionally noted that Greene County Habitat received an anonymous $1 million donation. It therefore achieved the infrastructure funding goal of $4.5 million, to “clear the way for construction to begin.”
Several state and local representatives attended the afternoon ceremony alongside Habitat for Humanity and Baynes Creek board members. Early in the ceremony, Baynes Creek Chair Jan Broughton spoke on the timeline of the new development and how it would help provide homes for employees in the community.
“This has been a long time coming,” she said. “In 2018, I went to a Habitat International Conference, where they introduced the idea of a mixed-income neighborhood. They encouraged Habitat affiliates like ours to reach deeper into their communities and to cast a wider net that would help a larger demographic of families.”
Broughton noted that after the conference, she approached the county’s Habitat for Humanity board on the issue. They then began to “peel back the layers” of the housing community’s reality in Greene County.
“We saw with a much clearer eye that folks who make our community possible, the essential workers like the teachers and the nurses and the firefighters and the police officers, literally have no place to live,” Broughton said. “These people are essential to the stability of our community. And the fact that they cannot live here where they work significantly threatens our stability; recognizing that only 40% of our teachers, 25% of our nurses, 8% of our police force, and only 4% of our firefighters live here.”
To conclude her remarks, Broughton mentioned that the anticipated mixed-income housing development can house up to 70 families in the community.
To establish the Baynes Creek Development, Habitat partnered with Georgia Communities, an organization that builds affordable housing. Executive director Joe Collums expressed gratitude for the opportunity to contribute his organization’s work to Greensboro.
“We’re a nonprofit company that’s really built on this idea that the best type of housing is not just the physical product, but it happens when you try to understand what a local community envisions and needs and wants,” Collums said. “We’ve been lucky to do that in a lot of areas and for a lot of partners, local governments, churches, and they’re all wonderful. But this one is special.”
Collums credited Greene County Habitat for its efforts to make the project happen and said it put extensive detail into the planning process. He also acknowledged Broughton and the City of Greensboro for their collaboration on the project.
“I think you’ll understand, if you know any of the details of what went into it, how special it is for a community like Greensboro and Greene County and its Habitat chapter to be able to pull off something this visionary and this ambitious,” Collum said. “Jan was very kind to give us more credit than we deserve. This only happens with local leaders who are willing to commit their time and effort and influence to make it special.”
The remarks concluded with Christopher Nunn, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Community Affairs. He elaborated on the need for affordable housing within the entire community.
“Affordable housing is important to every one of us in our community because the reality is affordability is important and is a number for each of us,” Nunn said. “So when you start to think about the people who make up your community, it’s not just the mayor, the Habitat chair, or the developer, but it’s also the police officers, the firefighters, the folks who are here today in whatever capacity.”
To conclude his remarks, Nunn thanked Broughton for her efforts throughout the Baynes Creek housing project.
“I appreciate the tenacity of the city, the tenacity of you [Broughton] and your board, and really the fact that this entire crowd out here [today] hasn’t given up on what I think will be an absolute shining star of an example of what the governor intended when he included this program in our budget,” Nunn said. “But really, this is what we need to see more of across the state, so on behalf of Governor Kemp, my entire team, I just want to say thank you and congratulations.”