The executive director of FCNWLA says he “learned a lot” during the Legacy Build and is ready to build two or three houses in March. To build three he needs $210,000.

He is also beginning to lay the foundation for building in other areas of town. He said, “There are people who need homes; there is property available.”

Jeter also wants organizations in those communities to step up and help through donations and volunteering.

In addition to building new houses, Jeter wants to expand the Greater Blessing repair and renovation program.

The program helps people who are homeowners get the repairs they may need but cannot afford.

A new endeavor in coming months will be involvement in lead abatement in houses built before 1978, especially those houses with minor children. Jeter said he had previously obtained a pamphlet
on lead poisoning so workers could be safe while doing rehab work. “I didn’t know it would become a focus area,” he said.

In the meantime, the Louisiana Department of Health and Human Services asked the center to get involved in solving the problem of lead poisoning. “First, I’m getting educated about lead poisoning,”
Jeter said. “Then I’ll pursue grant opportunities to address this issue.”

Jeter told of a client who may lose custody of a 4- year-old grandchild if they can’t address the problem. The client is disabled and on fixed income; moving is out of the question. “We need to step in and help them,” he said.

At last year’s conference in Virginia, Millard Fuller asked FCNWLA board members Becky Cooksey and Katie Weir to host the 2010 meeting.

Beginning at 1 p.m. Friday, the various sessions will be held at First United Methodist Church. The Saturday afternoon sessions end with a tour of Allendale, which the Fuller Center calls its “flagship” building site.

Dinner will follow with Linda Fuller, cofounder of the Fuller Center for Housing, speaking. Attendance at a Sunday worship service is optional.

Local home owner Phyllis Davis has been selected to speak at Friday’s dinner.

Lee Jeter, FCNWLA executive director, said he is proud to host the event and “to showcase what we’ve built, all our partners and our city.”

The conference will cover over 13 topics. Weir said that the essential idea she formed at last year’s meeting is the “importance of partnering with entities in the community.” Several of the conference’s sessions address this concern.

Weir also is interested in the session labeled, “ReUse Store Strategies.” She said this is about creating an income source from the reselling of donated items. “For example,” Weir said, “many stores will donate items that they can’t sell because of imperfections.”

Groups that receive these items may not be able to use them in their building projects but can resell them for operating revenue.

2009 Conference

Participants in the conference will be staying at the Downtown Holiday Inn on Lake Street and will be transported to the church and other venues.

Weir said that they will need about 15 local volunteers to help with the conference in areas such as meals, registration and transportation. She hopes that many FCNWLA board members will be able to participate.

Register At FullerCenter.org – Put on your Google Calendar

“The floors are cracked,” said Brazile. “We have holes in the walls. The doors aren’t even with the thing so a lot of wind comes through and we don’t have any source of heat except the stove and a couple electric heaters.”

Just last week an anonymous good Samaritan learned about Brazile’s situation and called Shreveport police hoping to help.

“Most people call to put people down but they were concerned enough to try to get some help and not try to hurt me,” said Brazile. “I’m overwhelmed.”

Shreveport Police Department Corporal Mike Dunn and Sandra Lister went to work.

“When I called businesses some of them I didn’t tell what I wanted I just told them I had a family I wanted them to meet and when they came out they felt compelled to do it for me,” said Lister.

Within days help poured in. Wilbert Williams with Mt. Mariah Baptist Church will donate $500.00. Calvin and Delores Johnson’s Motorcycle Club will donate a sink and a monetary gift. Richard Rascoe with the Whitlock Plumbing Company will complete all of Brazile’s plumbing work for free.

“If you come to our church and say you need help we will open our doors and our hearts because that’s what Jesus did,” said Williams.

“Some have and some have not,” said Johnson. “It’s always been a close thing to our hearts to help put back into the community.”

“I want to get everything going for her and take care of those little ones and be able to clean up,” said Rascoe.

The outpouring of love is a Christmas miracle Brazile never thought she would receive.

“If I thanked them all day and all night and all month and all year it really wouldn’t be enough,” said Brazile.

C.J. Enterprises has donated $1000.00 to the Brazile family and challenges other businesses to do the same.

The future is looking even brighter for Brazile and her children. Shreveport’s Fuller Center for Housing is currently helping Brazile apply for a brand new home through its program.

© Amber Miller /KTAL

The area’s story is no secret. Formerly thriving blocks decayed into buildingless, overgrown lots. But that is changing slowly.

Nonprofits and churches such as People of Praise, Community Renewal International, Habitat for Humanity, Mt. Canaan and Galilee Baptist churches and the Fuller Center for Housing have built dozens of homes and apartments that provide housing below market and at competitive prices. That has happened in conjunction with government plus help from private businesses.

But residences alone can’t restore a place, according to elected and unofficial community leaders. So commerce and other amenities must come next.

Allendale native Claude Marshall is trying to do that with his family’s Dale Street Grocery and Deli. The business has been open nearly a year in a building that housed a former store before it burned.

Garden of Hope - © Douglas Collier/The Times

Marshall takes a hyper local approach in his enterprise. He doesn’t sell alcohol — “seeing as how it’s destroyed the neighborhood” — and is hoping to get involved with WIC — which stands for Women, Infants, and Children — and provides money to get food for mothers and their young children.

“When you’ve got to pay somebody $5 to get something that cost $2, it just wouldn’t be feasible,” Marshall said, alluding to the cost of taxis or public transportation being too expensive. “They want something to eat without having to walk a long way to get it.”

Marshall, 55, is glad his business has seen its first Thanksgiving: “I’m in the black. I’m not in the red. I thank the loyal customers that come in every day.”

Shreveport City Councilman Calvin Lester, who has represented the neighborhoods since 2002, is thankful for business owners like Marshall.

“We have built houses and we have put people in those houses. But the thing that needs to happen now is focusing on the entrepreneurial opportunities and the economic development for the area,” Lester said. “I have said that there are some things that government does well, and there’s others it does not. I think government can build houses, but it takes more than just governmental intervention to rebuild communities.”

Empty parcels of land don’t just happen. Between 1970 and 2000, the population in Allendale shrank from 16,247 to 5,982. During that same time, Shreveport’s total residents grew nearly 10 percent from 182,064 to 200,145.

But besides new houses, Allendale and Ledbetter Heights residents have found other creative ways to rebuild.

The appropriately named Rosie Chaffold takes care of the Allendale Garden of Hope and Love. She’s a familiar face to neighbors — who honked and waved while driving by on a recent Tuesday — and she’s received media attention and accolades over the years for her work with dirt.

With lots of help from the LSU AgCenter and volunteers from outside the neighborhood, she provides plenty of green stuff for neighbors to eat, free of charge, plus well-kept flower beds. And all on a street corner where she and police say folks used to meet “for something stronger than that — something illegal.” And that would have been drugs.

But since 2001, Chaffold said, neighbors who used to ask her why she tried to make a difference occasionally stop by to help her with gardening. Now she feels gratified but hopes more nearby residents will join her. The work and the food, she said, are the bounty.

“When you’re in a garden you feel like you’re next to God, close to the Earth,” said Chaffold, a Mer Rouge native who has called Allendale home for more than three decades.

Ruth Peace has seen more changes in Allendale than Chaffold. The 89-year-old woman has lived on Buena Vista Street, where she raised a family with her late husband, since 1960. She eats a vegetable or two from the community garden now and then, and she appreciates the work that goes into it.

“I’ll be 90 years old come next August, so you know I have a whole lot to be thankful for,” Peace said. “It has changed. But there’s always room for improvement.”

By Adam Kealoha Causey • acausey@gannett.com

Source: http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20091128/NEWS01/911280318/1060

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

Through this initiative FCNWLA has rehabilitated a number of homes in Allendale and the surrounding area.These rehabs are done in partnership with businesses and churches and can include such work as roofing, painting, plumbing and other general repairs.

Recent rehab projects and partnerships include the 315 N. Allen Ave. home of Helen Clark – Community Renewal International in partnership with Honeywell Corporation; the 1834 Garden St. home of Carrie Brayboy – Chesapeake Energy; and the Etta Williams home at 121 Leroy St. – Eldorado
Casino.

In addition students from the Huntington High School shop class built a ramp for Effie Romby at 1928 Ford Street. Job Corps members and other volunteers also painted her house.

From June 14-20, 75 people from the Central Texas Methodist Conference performed approximately 2,250 hours of service at 19 different sites, which included rehab on 10 homes, the YWCA and four Volunteer of America sites.

The group of 45 youth and 30 adults, divided into nine teams, also built four
wheelchair ramps. Noel United Methodist Church housed the participants
while they were in the area.

“We would like to give thanks to our many partners and to the Central Texas
Conference for their recent mission trip to Shreveport and the impact that their service had on our community,” said Lee Jeter, FCNWLA director. “OYEE, our community partners!”

FCNWLA screens rehab applicants as they do applicants for new houses. Owners of renovated homes receive “Greater Blessings” boxes which contain envelopes addressed to FCNWLA to be used for love offerings to help bless other families.

“We are trying to get local churches to recommend people whose homes need rehab work,” Jeter said. “We want to help those who are unable to help themselves.”

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.

“It tells the story of our neighborhood,” said Averil Miles, executive director.

The number 40 is significant because its the end of a period of trials and of being tested, he said. The house is symbolic to the organization’s testing period.

The house will be constructed on Alston Street, around the corner from the organization’s offices. Miles estimates the house could be built in February or March.

“The goal is to be prepared to have the house up around Easter.”

So the organization is looking for time and monetary donations to help construct the house. The goal is to partner with 40 local churches to help make it happen.

Miles also hopes more business and corporate sponsors step forward, as well as individual donors and volunteers. “We want to grow a constituency and the amount of volunteers. Maybe this campaign is made of a bunch of small contributions (rather) than a larger contribution.”

The Fuller Center was founded in the area in 2005 after hurricanes Katrina and Rita ravaged the Louisiana coastline. Founder Millard Fuller pledged to build about 60 dwellings for low-income residents and those the storms left homeless.

The local affiliate struck out on its own in November 2007 and organized a housing blitz. Last year, nine homes were built and were sold with no-interest mortgages to low-income families.

As The Fuller Center began planning to construct its 40th house, it came across one large stumbling block “” the economy. Already tight belts are tighter as the holidays approach.

But on the road toward the 40th house, the center’s staff has learned perseverance, an important trait that will need to executed, Miles said.

“We know that target audience, but this is a season for giving. You’ll always see a reward with a project like this.”

The reward, Miles said, can be seen in how family dynamics change.

Felicia Sewell, a 39-year-old recipient of a Fuller house, spent 11 years in the Army before leaving the service. For her, motherhood was too strong of a draw.

“At some point when you have a child, you do what best for your children,” said Sewell, who now has six children ages 4 to 19. “But I had a career.”

That was seven years and several apartment moves ago. Now Sewell and five of her children live in a home, giving them a sense of stability they never had before.

“They get to grow up in a house they can call their own,” Sewell said. “They don’t have to worry about whether we’re moving. When my kids are 25, they’ll be able to say let’s go to mom’s house.”

© Icess Fernandez/Shreveport-Times

ifernandez@gannett.com

“You need to follow your dreams on what I call a faith-foolishness line. When you plan to do something for society, you need to get as close to the foolishness as you can without actually getting into the foolishness.”

In hindsight, that’s easy for Fuller to say. The former lawyer and businessman left both professions to found Habitat for Humanity, one of the largest nonprofit home construction organizations in the world, housing 1 million people and counting in more than 90 countries.

Fuller separated from Habitat for Humanity in 2005 and immediately started the Fuller Center for Housing, an organization similar to Habitat for Humanity. The Fuller Center is doing a Blitz Build in Shreveport’s Allendale neighborhood, with nearly 60 houses expected to be built there by mid-2009.

Fuller, 73, said giving up has never been an option. Sweating in a T-shirt and jeans after working the nail gun Monday morning, the septuagenarian said he has no plans to retire for the foreseeable future.

“You know, a lot of people have asked me that. … When you feel blessed, why would you want to quit? Going around, gawking at tourist sites is not appealing to me.”

Faith surrounds Fuller, on the construction site and off.

“People his age, you question why don’t they retire,” said W. Russell Meade, CEO of New Hope Construction, a Tennessee contractor helping out in Allendale. “But the Bible never speaks of being retired.”

One of the Fuller Center’s latest programs is the Greater Blessing Box Initiative, in which Fuller Center supporters repair homes for elderly residents who are physically unable to do the work and leave a wooden box with prepared envelopes for the residents to pay back the cost of materials when able.

“I’ve always loved coming by Shreveport,” Fuller said. “It’s a wonderful city. … But there are still pockets of need.”

Fuller still lives with his wife, Linda, in Americus, Ga., the home of Habitat for Humanity. On Monday, he was on his way to Minden to examine another Fuller Center project in the Webster city.

Fuller praised the local communities for taking on projects so passionately.

“The Bible says it’s a blessing to receive but an even greater blessing to give. We want to give people the opportunity to receive the greater blessing.”

© Drew Pierson – Shreveport-Times – dpierson@gannett.com

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