A partnership was formed that is now helping residents in other cities as well. The Fuller Center builds houses; CRI builds community. Together, we are “Building on Higher Ground” to help those who lack the resources and the relationships that could make home ownership possible on their own.

The vision goes beyond building houses for a few. We are building hope for many. Shreveport’s Allendale neighborhood – an area of decaying houses, high crime and little income – was chosen for the launch of the “Higher Ground” initiative. With hundreds of volunteers coming from throughout the nation, this once forgotten neighborhood is now a place of new hope and new beginnings that is receiving worldwide attention.

Community Renewal International

A garden grows where trash and bottles once filled a vacant lot. Children gather on a playground built by a local service club. Residents who were once too frightened to come out of their houses now laugh and eat together at neighborhood block parties.

“Many years ago this was one of the worst communities in the city. Homicides, crime, gang activity – you name it and it was here,” said Jewel Mariner, one of two CRI Community Coordinators in Allendale. She lives in a Friendship House that has become an anchor for the neighborhood.

“It’s amazing to see the transformation in people’s lives and in this neighborhood. People used to just call this The Hill. Now it’s New Hope Hill. People in the community now have hope.”

By the start of 2007, little more than one year after work started, 23 new houses had been built in the community. Each one has its own unique features, designs and color schemes. Several of the new homeowners have become CRI Haven House leaders and now reach out to others in the neighborhood.

“I want to be a light on the hill. I care about my community and I want us to come together,” said Dorothy Wiley, who made a new start in Shreveport after she and her family were trapped in the New Orleans Superdome for four days after Hurricane Katrina destroyed their home. “You build a neighborhood by being a neighbor to everybody. You develop relationships one person at a time.”

The Higher Ground project was launched by Millard Fuller, founder of Habitat for Humanity and then later of The Fuller Center for Housing.

“We are here to transform this city. We have the opportunity to make this one of the most beautiful cities in the country,” he said. “It’s so exciting that Community Renewal International and the Friendship Houses are here. You can build houses, but if you don’t build community, it will all fall apart.”

For Allendale, Night Out’s crime awareness message hits particularly close to home. It is a neighborhood revitalized, said Shreveport police Cpl. Lonnie Haskins, who has been assigned to that district since he joined the force in 1997 and attended Tuesday’s event along with other police officers and firefighters.

Parents were grilling out and chatting with each other while children laughed, ate hot dogs, made sidewalk art, jumped in a bouncy house and explored a fire engine.

“In ’97, ’98, ’99, we were bumpin’ and gunnin’ out here,” Haskins said of Allendale, where at the time at least five calls for service poured in each night. He’s seen the neighborhood turn around, something he said he never envisioned could happen and for which he credits the Fuller Center for Housing of Northwest Louisiana and Friendship Houses.

Sherry Brown, 40, works for Community Renewal International and lives in one of the two Friendship Houses in the 1500 block of Clay, where trim and prim affordable houses built by the Fuller Center line the streets.

Harkening back to the neighborhood’s violent past and in the spirit of Night Out, Fuller Housing recipient and neighbor Dorothy Wiley, 55, made a poster with a clever acronym.

“Let’s say no to:
“C-arrying concealed firearms without a permit
“R-ape
“I-llegal possession of drugs/firearms
“M-anslaughter
“E-ntry of an inhabited dwelling.”

She posted it on the front door of one of the two Friendship Houses.

Rudolph Glass Jr., 45, and his wife immediately began to regret their decision when they bought a house on Clay 12 years ago. Not so now.

“Things really started to change when they put the Friendship House in. And ever since then it’s just been getting better and better and better,” said Glass, who has manned the grill at each of the past seven Night Out parties.

Community Renewal International’s Brown says it all starts by meeting the needs of neighborhood children, which works as a domino effect in involving their parents.

Glass’ 15-year-old son, Rudolph Glass III, has attended after-school programs at the Friendship Houses the past seven years. As the high school student helped tear down equipment from the party and carry boxes to cars, his father explained that he’s involved in the neighborhood association and attends parent meetings in a neighborhood he didn’t want to be a part of 12 years ago.

Source: http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009911040314

But by the time Millard asked us to stand on our chairs, to physically and visually symbolize the idea of Building on Higher Ground, I think we would have just as readily stood on a flagpole. We were that inspired.

He also shared a word new to most of us “” Oyee (Oh — yay). A word of African origin, it was a rallying cry and a shout of affirmation we would hear many times.

For Shreveport, the meeting that morning led to the 38 beautiful new homes, built by volunteers from around the nation, now standing in the Allendale neighborhood. Millard committed to at least 60, and I have no doubt we will reach that number.

For me, that meeting led to one of the greatest honors of my life: to work with and for one of the truly heroic servant leaders of our time. Millard made $1 million before he was 30, but when it nearly cost him his marriage, he gave it all away, took his family to the mission field and then returned home to start Habitat for Humanity. Under his leadership, Habitat housed more than one million people in 100 nations.

Millard died from heart failure in an ambulance not far from his Georgia home Feb. 3, one month after his 74th birthday. Despite his age, his sudden death came as an absolute shock. He had tremendous energy and often seemed to have a hammer in one hand and a cell phone in the other.

Community Renewal International founder Mack McCarter drove to Georgia soon after the hurricane to meet with Millard, a longtime friend, and to seek the help of The Fuller Center for Housing in Shreveport. Millard answered the call like a father rushing to the bedside of a sick child. He visited Allendale and saw in his visionary mind more than houses for hurricane evacuees. He saw something few Shreveporters ever imagined for that crime-ridden area “” a new community. Today on these streets of Allendale, where flowers bloom and children play outside, we can see what Millard saw back in 2005.

Millard spoke so often about Shreveport in his travels the past three years that the Chamber of Commerce should have put him on the payroll. He believed in this city with a force that put many of us to shame.

Ever smiling, always optimistic, he challenged us to stop driving by our downtrodden communities as though they don’t even exist. Because of Millard, many people who never dared go into Allendale volunteered to build houses there and now have friends there.

Millard made Shreveport a better place. He made the world a better place.

He also sensed that his time with us was drawing to a close. The last time I heard Millard preach was in Union Church of San Salvador before the start of the Millard and Linda Fuller Blitz Build last fall.

“I started Habitat for Humanity when I was 40 and I started The Fuller Center when I was 70. I tell people I have to go faster now because I have less time,” he said that morning in El Salvador. “When you are approaching the goal line, when you are coming to the end, you need to speed up, not slow down. My philosophy is you oughta wear out instead of rusting out.”

Millard certainly did not rust out, and I don’t think he wore out, either. I would rather believe that God needed another builder for the mansions in heaven and he gave Millard a new assignment.

We miss you terribly, Millard, but it is a well-deserved promotion. I only hope the angels remembered to shout Oyee when you arrived.

© David Westerfield

David Westerfield is the director of communications for Community Renewal International and a member of the board of The Fuller Center of Northwest Louisiana.

Even the surrounding blocks in the north part of Allendale have rid themselves of the three-room homes that had become little more than shacks, havens for drugs and crime.

In their place, simple two- and three-bedroom homes stand. Flowers burst with color from beds surrounded by tidy lawns.

Basketball hoops and lawn furniture give the impression of neighbors who feel safe enough to relax outside.

The neighborhood’s transformation started in 2005 with a plan led by the Fuller Center for Housing. Millard Fuller, founder of the organization and Habitat for Humanity, saw the plight of those who left New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and promised to help build 60 homes here in Shreveport for those who wanted to stay here and for other low-income residents.

Thirty-five are finished. Three more will be added this week.

For the third year, workers have come from across the country for a blitz build.

Different this year is the local chapter, the Fuller Center for Housing of Northwest Louisiana, is responsible for fundraising and construction instead of the national organization.

That means us: individuals, businesses, churches, government. So much progress has been made so far, it would be tragic to stop now.

About 40 volunteers are expected to come in from Minnesota, California and Texas. They’ll certainly make a dent in starting the work, but organizers say they could use more local volunteers as well.

“We invite everyone to come down wether you can swing a hammer or paint a wall,” said board president Ken Alexander. “We have all kinds “” any level of experience in building we can use you.”

We can attest to that. You might endure some good-natured teasing, but the experienced volunteers will teach you anything from painting to securing a roof with hurricane clips.

The project will also need ongoing financial support. Each house costs about $50,000. While there is income from mortgages on the other homes, it doesn’t keep up with the need to keep building.

Government assistance has caused controversy in past years, as the center had tried to obtain adjudicated property “” abundant in the neighborhood. This year Fuller Center leaders say the city has been more than helpful.

We’re glad they saw the promise of the project and the lives it has changed. We just wish something could be done about the system, which still drags on.

None of the families in the homes could have afforded to buy on their own. Under this system, they are required to work a certain amount to earn “sweat equity” and then they have a 20-year, no-interest mortgage to pay.

They have lived up to their end of the bargain.

A drive through those blocks between Allen and Pierre avenues today could be a drive through any new, suburban development. It’s up to us to continue the progress.

© Shreveport-Times – Editorial