UD Safe&Sound

The University District Police Joint Agency (UDPJA) proposes to launch a critical home repair program in partnership with Jacob's Ladder CDC, and with this upstart campaign provide critical repairs to the first well vetted, homeowner in our District that will stop the process of dilapidation, stop roof leaking and replace window glass and help insulate the home for the winter.  Our first candidate is a third generation UDistrict homeowner in medical bankruptcy with home repair needs totaling an estimated $22,000.  With $2,000, we can keep winter out and stop the decline for this family of four (with two teenagers).  

Jacob's Ladder CDC will work with UDPJA to continue fundraising and leverage this upstart with a designation from the Tennessee Housing Development Authority as our agent for repairs, and additional funding to continue operations, complete repairs for candidate one, vet additional candidates and work with us, house by house, neighbor by neighbor, to restore quality of life and housing value to our UDistrict.  

Please consider supporting our campaign with your generous donation today.  Do it for your neighbors, for your block and to help preserve the value of your own home.  Winter is surely coming.  Please help us make sure every home in the University District is Safe & Sound.   

1. Secure funding.

2. Contract repair with Jacob's Ladder CDC.  Jacob's Ladder will make the first home repair with no labor costs - all money raised in this campaign will cover materials.  

3. UDPJA board will review applicants for additional repairs as funds become available.  

Working together to reduce crime and blight since 2012 and realizing a 49% decrease for our efforts, our planning district's most lingering problem properties are no longer characterized as the disinvestments of absentee landlords. Our greatest gains came in battling this group and we continue to successfully use the courts for remediation when needed.  What remains to be addressed in our district is an estimated 650 low-income owner-occupants who were casualties of our national housing crisis, suffering loss of equity, unable to qualify for traditional home improvement loans.  For this group, there is no assistance.  Federal and local program dollars for home repairs are stretched so thinly that even waiting lists have been suspended, and as communities fight hard against blight, our vulnerable neighbors are absorbing punitive sanctions for property conditions they can't afford to correct, making their situations- and ours, as adjacent property owners, so much worse.