While Habitat for Humanity founder Millard Fuller spoke to a crowd of western Anniston residents, telling them that the unheralded work in their neighborhood was the most significant accomplishment of this week’s Jimmy Carter Work Project, the former president was nowhere in sight.Neither was Bill Wright, the man who fought for the battered neighborhood when others called him “delusional.”
Instead of holding microphones, both men were off wielding tools, improving someone’s house.
While a few residents were disappointed that Carter didn’t show at Thursday’s western Anniston press conference, the sweat that Carter and Wright have committed to eradicating some dilapidated housing in Calhoun County is a statement that has had an undeniable affect on the community.
In less than a week, one of the most defeated sections of western Anniston has been revived. On street corners where drug peddlers and hookers worked just weeks ago, old neighbors now gather, talking about each other’s homes like women talk about each other’s new hairstyles.
Western Anniston has a new look.
“Let it continue,” said an emotional Anniston Mayor Chip Howell, who has spent the week repairing houses in the area while Carter and the bulk of 2,800 volunteers have been building 35 affordable houses in Wellborn Manor, outside of city limits. “Let it continue.”
Nearly every house in a nine-block area – from Cooper to Pine avenues, from 15th to 18th streets – has seen improvement this week. There are about 80 homes, 35 of which have had major renovations. Another 20 or so have had minor work, such as windows being replaced.
Almost all have been beautified with landscaping. Tuesday a crew took a selection of shrubs to every doorstep and told the homeowners to pick out what the liked, for free.
“I’m proud I lived to see it,” said Lillie Mae Bowers, who listened to the press conference on her Mulberry Street porch, her purple and gray hair pulled neatly in a ponytail.
All of the speakers, from the mayor to Solutia’s Anniston plant manager, David Cain, were unified in their commitment to parlay this week’s momentum across the city. The Carter Project is in Anniston this week because local leaders were the first in the country to accept Habitat’s 21st Century Challenge, vowing to eliminate all substandard housing in their county by 2020.
“In many ways this is the most important thing going on this week,” said Fuller, 60. He added that he hoped he would live long enough to see every person in Calhoun County have quality housing. Then, he said, the old gospel song would be sung: “Victory in Jesus.”
Across the western Anniston neighborhood houses have new tops, walls have fresh paint, faucets have water and light switches have power.
The change in western Anniston has come with about one-tenth of the volunteers that are working in Wellborn Manor this week. Residents have done much of the work. Many were wary of Wright’s plan, but picked up tools when the hammering started. They have gotten off their stoops and asked to help.
One volunteer, one of the 120 or so Solutia employees spending the week in the community, put the spirit to verse.
I saw an old man holding a shovel and looking quite tired,
For the longest he didn’t move and just stood there in his yard.
He seemed to be surveying the activity on his busy street,
I wondered why he didn’t just sit down and rest his feet.
The will that the project has restored to people is hard to calculate. It will likely be measured in the weeks and years to come. Already people from other neighborhoods have approached City Councilman Herbert Palmore and asked him to help their homes. “I’m ecstatic,” he said.
While President Carter’s commitment to hard labor is stirring, not just a few residents at the press conference expected him. They had heard he would be there. They wore his name on their T-shirts.
“That was supposed to be the highlight of this whole thing,” said Alfonso Thomas, whose sombrero and electric wheelchair have become an icon of the western Anniston work. “We’re waiting on Jimmy Carter.”
When the mayor ended the conference, Thomas motored away, disappointed.
The crowd gathered for a photo, and then went back to work.
