Centerville to hold first housing fair

The City of Centerville will host its first Housing Resource Fair Tuesday, August 6. The event will serve as an effort to reach out to the city’s residents. Director of Economic Development Kate Hogan, along with the Centerville Housing Team made up of residents, regional non-profit organizations, and others, are hoping to present valuable resources and information through the fair.

The event is part of the Georgia Initiative for Community Housing, a designation given to Centerville for 2019-2021. Hogan says the event’s goal is to evaluate and address housing needs from the same base. The Housing Team’s primary function is supporting residents by educating them on available resources, and building community pride at the same time.

“It’s basically an intensive look at housing needs and how it pertains to Centerville residents and what we can accomplish and try to help our residents [with] as best as we can,” said Hogan. “So we have a housing team, it’s made up of eleven members, and those are some local residents in the City of Centerville, some regional non-profits in Houston County, and just a few other team members that really help us kind of have a lot of knowledge and a lot of opportunity to just make an impact.”

Using local neighborhood as an example, Hogan stated that constructing events of this nature is important for targeting different areas with different housing needs. Hogan says surveys have been a big help in accomplishing this.

“We’re doing things like having this housing fair, we’ve got a survey out right now for trying to understand what the community needs as far as housing goes,” Hogan stated. “Because we are home to Eagle Springs and that is an incredible neighborhood, their needs are very different than the rest of the city. So we’re trying to really make sure that we target both sections of our city and an opportunity to kind of reach a lot of needs,”

The vendors involved in this event come from local and state levels to address the varying needs of Centerville residents. Some of the vendors and resources that will be present during the fair include: Anthos Properties: Lexington Place Apartment Complex, Sentinel Property Management, Synovus, Colony Bank, Henry Hopson with State Farm, Department of Community Affairs, Georgia Legal Services as well as realtors and mortgage originators.

Four outreach organizations are taking part in this outreach event as well. The organizations include Family Promise, Habitat for Humanity, Houston County Family Connections and Mission United. The varying outreach goals of these organizations will pool together to provide a wide base to address a variety of needs. Tian Foss with Houston County Family Connections, Nichole Rosser with Family Promise, and Cheryl Glover with Habitat for Humanity are a few of the integral individuals responsible for pulling together this resource fair.

“This is just one of the things that the Centerville Housing Team is working on and it is just a way for us to assist our residents in whatever they may need.”