ABOVE: Dee Ann Ryan states her case for Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA) to be involved in helping increase the number of homeowners in Danville and Vermilion County.
A workshop will be coming up in late August, simultaneously at two different locations, to assist Danville and Vermilion County residents in home ownership. And there is hope that the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, NACA, can soon have a permanent home in the area. The non-profit currently operates in the Chicago region, but are active nationwide.
During Tuesday (Aug 8th) evening’s Danville City Council Public Works Committee meeting, Dee Ann Ryan spoke for the Elmwood Community Playground and Civic group, as a citizen, and also as Housing Chair for the NAACP. Ryan says the idea would be for the Vermilion Housing Authority and/or City of Danville to provide vouchers for home ownership, under a working agreement with NACA.
AUDIO: What they do is they can work with people to transfer vouchers into home ownership. We want to get people trained to be housing counselors to help people through the process of getting a mortgage, and also to get their affairs in order in order to get a mortgage, and financial education.
Danville mayor Rickey Williams, Jr and City Council Public Works Committee during Tuesday evening’s meeting.
Danville mayor Rickey Williams, Jr stated that anything with a positive goal like this is worth considering.
AUDIO: Anything that we can do to help people become homeowners, responsible homeowners, I think is a good thing.
Ryan emphasized that that removing barriers for potential homeowners is NACA’s number one goal. And attitude is the key.
AUDIO: Like if they don’t have a perfect credit score; they look at more how hard the person looks to be trained and get the education, than at the credit score.
The workshops are scheduled for Saturday, August 26th, 9 AM to1 PM, via zoom at both the Danville Public Library, and the Danville Area Community College Bremer Center.
Also during the Public Works Committee meeting was the approval of an agreement with AMBUCS to install some new special needs friendly playground equipment in Winter Park, while moving some of the current Winter Park equipment to Lincoln Park.
In addition, there was also further discussion about city offices possibly going to a Monday through Thursday 7:30 AM to 5:30 PM schedule with a half-hour lunchbreak, while being closed on Fridays. That topic brought numerous positive and negative perspectives, and discussions are expected to proceed slowly.
