Carolyn Ford,
Executive Director

P.O. Box 550
100 Beech Ave
Gretna, FL 32332

Phone: (850) 856-5025
Fax: (850) 856-9268

Email

Counties Served: Gadsden, Leon

Incorporated: 1986

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STRATEGIES & ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Community Development:
The Jericho Organizing Project builds leaders from the community and expands the community's capacity to address its needs. Two hundred families have enrolled in this program (30 served monthly) which also operates a food cooperative.

The Homebuyers Club offers counseling and support services to provide low-income families with education and assistance to meet qualifying standards for home mortgages. Forty-five families have become qualified homebuyers through this program.

The Housing Rehabilitation Program employs youth from the YouthBuild program while providing repair services to low-income homeowners. Great synergy exists between the Rehabilitation and YouthBuild programs since at-risk youth (16-22 years old) benefit from the combination of an educational component with hands-on instruction in construction skills. Seventy-two homes have been rehabilitated with the help of 65 high school graduates.

Housing Development:
NFEDC is one of an original group of nine CDCs across the nation participating in the Rural Home Loan Partnership (RHLP). A pilot partnership with the Federal Home Loan Bank, USDA's Rural Housing Service and Rural LISC, the goal of RHLP is to increase homeownership in rural areas by testing a new mortgage product. Homeownership counseling and support for borrowers is delivered through a local partnership with Capital City Bank and the local RHS Office. NFEDC has completed 22 affordable single-family homes under the RHLP program.

A well designed and maintained affordable rental housing development (22 units) is being planned in Gretna. This development ("Lanier Oaks") will be the result of a partnership with the Florida Housing Finance Corporation, the Federal Home Loan Bank and Capital City Bank.

NFEDC obtained an acquisition and predevelopment loan from the State of Florida that allowed them to purchase a 92-acre site in South Quincy. The site was purchased in 2000, and NFEDC has since been working on getting the property annexed and re-zoned and obtaining project financing for the development of 50 single-family homes as the first phase. The South Springs encounter some difficulties and lay dormant for a time; but has since been successfully revived. FFEDC has received the final Development Order from the City of Quincy and has executed a Development Agreement with the City of Quincy, as well. Permanent financing for the project has been assembled and include Envision Credit Union, USDA Rural Housing, Fannie Mae Partners of North Florida and Capital City Bank Group.

Economic Development:
The Wellspring Initiative will begin with the Farmers Market, a produce-packing house and retail shop. The second phase involves the renovation of the Quincy Feed Mill into the WellSpring food processing plant with WAGES participants from the Gadsden Employment Program. The processing plant will buy crops from the BigBend Farmers Cooperative and will work with the Florida Certified Organic Growers & Consumers, Inc for certification. This initiative will employ 12 WAGES participants and will engage another 12 local farmers in raising organic crops. The Gadsden Employment Program is a contracted employment program with WAGES to provide entrepreneurial and self-employment training to WAGES participants and a transition from welfare support to work. Forty families have begun to move out of poverty and dependence as a result of this program.