After winning 52 million dollars in grant money from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development city leaders received an evaluation today on how they spent the funds.
After living in Regent I for about a year Jeromy Boutte says his family appreciates the opportunity to call it home.
"This helps them out so they can pay low rent and still have a good place to stay and it's a good community around here," he said.
In 2006 the Beaumont Housing Authority won a nationwide competition for 52 million dollars in grant money from HUD.
The housing authorities executive director, Robert Reyna, says in the past six years they have torn down dilapidated buildings like the old Magnolia Gardens and created affordable housing in it's place.
"We demolished that property and replaced it with three different sites," said Reyna.
Starting with Regent I that has 160 units for families of mixed incomes on the old fair grounds.
And then the old Magnolia site was turned into Pointe North that has 158 multi-family apartments.
"Then went back to the old fair grounds and built regent two, that consists of 87 single family home lots," said Reyna.
The last project in the Hope VI program is knocking down the vacant police substation at the old fair grounds and replacing it with a state-of-the-art Neighborhood Resource Center.
The new resource center will have a computer lab, office spaces and training rooms where residents can take classes on how to handle their finances and how to interview for a job. The skills Reyna says they need to prepare for life with out government assistance.
"The whole idea is for these properties to help families that really want to do something to improve themselves, to help them move in, move up and move out," the executive director said.
And move on to the next step in life.
Demolishing the old police substation and building the new neighborhood resource center will cost roughly $750,000.
Reyna says construction should start in about two weeks and the project should be completed in about 90 days.
