Gloria Cherry lives in a cheerful yellow home with brown shutters, a block house built in 1943 in Camilla, Georgia. “I’ve lived here for 72 years in March,” Gloria said of Mitchell County. She raised her son in the country before moving into town, where her friends can visit on the screened-in porch or come into the air conditioning when it’s too hot outside.

“It’s a nice place,” she said of Camilla. It’s just a small town, but everybody gets along, and different kinds of things are always going on downtown.”

It’s a community with a lot of pride, and it’s home for Cherry. “We’ve got some pretty good ball teams, basketball teams,” she said. “I don’t think I want to be anywhere else.”

This cheerful yellow home belonged to Cherry’s mother, Betty. But as her mother’s health declined, it grew harder to keep the home in good repair.

Gloria knew her mother wanted to fix things up, so she applied for help through the Community HOME Investment Program, known locally as CHIP. “She worked hard to try to get some help,” Gloria said.

The federally funded CHIP program helps pay for home rehabilitation for qualifying homeowners, administered locally through the Southwest Georgia Regional Commission. With funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) through the HOME Investment Partnership Program, CHIP aims to provide safe, decent, and affordable housing.

Sadly, Gloria’s mother, Betty, didn’t live to see the repairs completed. She passed away just as approval was coming through. “She would have been so proud,” Gloria said. “She was already blind, but she didn’t give up hope that she could have seen what happened.”

After Betty passed away, Gloria worked with staff from the Southwest Georgia Regional Commission to transfer the deed so the repairs could continue. 

At the Cherry home, CHIP completed a flurry of repairs that will make the home more enjoyable and livable for years to come. Workers painted, put up doors, put down new vinyl flooring, and installed new moldings and trim. They upgraded the electrical service and installed wired smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. “They just did a great job,” Gloria said. 

They re-did the bathroom, making it wheelchair-accessible and installing a new toilet and shower. “The shower had been working, but it wasn’t working properly,” Gloria said of conditions before repairs.

CHIP provides home rehabilitation for people who don’t have the expendable income for big repair costs, especially seniors living on fixed incomes. This work can make homes safer for resident homeowners and benefit families whose generational savings have been invested in their homes. It also helps keep the local housing stock in good condition, which benefits entire neighborhoods and the tax base.

For many families in rural communities, a home is their largest investment and often the foundation of generational stability. Programs like CHIP help ensure those homes remain safe and livable for years to come.

“I wouldn’t have been able to do it, at my age, and especially for some people, they just don’t have enough to work with,” Cherry said. “You’ve got to live. You’ve got to eat, got to pay bills, got to pay the rent or the mortgage.”

Gloria praised the workers on the home for being courteous with questions and addressing concerns. They also cleaned up carefully in the yard. “It was like a big family,” she said. “They knew what they were going to do, and they knew how they were going to do it. They all worked together, and they did a great job.”

Now, the kitchen is her favorite room in the house. “They just did a wonderful job with that kitchen,” she said. “Just beautiful. The drawers and cabinets? Just beautiful.”

CHIP added more cabinet space and fixed the sink. The program replaced the hot water heater with a smaller, more efficient one and fixed drainage problems. 

CHIP also installed a new heating and air conditioning unit in the home. Contractors made the porch more comfortable by installing new screening.

Now, Gloria wants to get her yard in shape as her mother liked it, planting some palm trees in the yard that Gloria has growing in pots. “She loved her yards and all that,” Gloria said. “I got to get them the way she would do more.”

With repairs that make her home safer and more livable, it’s easier to work on her goals for her property in the future. “It was a great relief,” Cherry said. “I felt like I was in a new home.”