Key Milestone Accomplished: First Project Boots Home Closing
LISC Jacksonville and its partners officially handed over the keys to La’Tasha Lewis for her brand-new home in Out East while celebrating an important milestone: the first home closing for the Project Boots homeownership program. While momentous for Ms. Lewis and every organization involved, this milestone also marks another essential step forward in revitalizing the once-bustling Historic Eastside neighborhood as a whole.
“Our original purpose with Project Boots was to change the trajectory and narrative of Jacksonville’s most under-resourced communities, starting with the Historic Eastside, and provide a guided path to access to homeownership for potential homeowners,” said LISC Jacksonville Executive Director Dr. Irvin “PeDro” Cohen.
“Project Boots was created as an investment in both the Historic Eastside community overall and in the homebuyers themselves. In doing so, we reinvigorate the passion residents feel for the Historic Eastside community, who will in turn demand more for their neighborhood, helping uplift the community as a whole in the process,” he also added. “The future is bright for Project Boots participants as we have four more homes slated to get started construction by the summer.”
Project Boots, announced in Sept. 2021 and funded by LISC Jacksonville, LIFT JAX, and Florida Blue, provides support and guidance for five local residents on their path towards homeownership in the Historic Eastside neighborhood. The Northside Coalition of Jacksonville, another Project Boots partner, provides down-payment assistance to the participants when they successfully complete a 10-month homeownership training program. That down payment assistance enables participants – all of whom are Jacksonville natives and are employed in various industries – to purchase and build a new home on existing vacant lots in Historic Eastside and in other LISC Jacksonville-supported neighborhoods. The homeownership curriculum addresses areas such as financial components of homeownership, using homeownership as a wealth-building mechanism, health-related topics, home maintenance, and others.
“As a teen mom, my sons have always inspired me to be what others said I could never be and to have what they said I could never have,” said Ms. Lewis, who has worked for a large local insurance company for 21 years. She is also the owner of oBEADience, LLC., a company specializing in hand crafted beaded bracelets, which Lewis makes herself. “So, to have closed on the first home of my very own is a tremendously exciting and rewarding milestone for me.”
Ms. Lewis is a graduate of William M. Raines High School and Edwards Waters University and a mother of two adult sons, and she will be the first generation in her family to reside on the Eastside. She is a 15-year member of her local church, Tabernacle Baptist Church, and serves in the Trustee’s Ministry, the Pastor’s Aide Ministry, the Scholarship Ministry, the Hostess Serving Team Ministry, the Choir, and as Assistant Church Clerk.
“The guidance and support provided by LISC Jacksonville and others really helped me understand the process and how I could make this dream a reality. I am so grateful to everyone involved.”
The developers of Ms. Lewis’s new home, which is located directly across from the proposed new soccer stadium nearby the Historic Eastside’s sports entertainment district, were The Hardmon Company and In the Word International Ministry. Principal of The Hardmon Company, Terry Hardmon, and Sr. Pastor of In the Word Ministry, Harry Williams, both Jacksonville natives, hired local builders and subcontractors to build the home, while they oversaw the budget, materials purchasing, and other details associated with the home.
“As my professional career matured, I never felt comfortable living better than my parents, still residing in the impoverished home I grew up in; therefore, I always worked on making living improvements for my parents,” said Hardmon. “Now it is an honor and pleasure to assist my community with affordable but quality home ownership and do my part to enhance the Eastside community. A bonus is working with childhood friends Harry and Dr. Cohen to accomplish this. Rod Stanford with Starline Investments also played an important role in assisting with this effort. I look forward to partnering with others as we continue with this effort.”
Pastor Harry Williams also reflected on how important this milestone and Project Boots initiative are to the Historic Eastside community. “We are excited about being able to let our video match our audio in the community where I grew up,” said Pastor Williams. “We talked about being in this position to help and serve others in this space, and we are grateful to God for allowing this to happen. We are blessed to have a team of organizations that shared a vision and was laser-focused on getting this done. We all win in these joint efforts to provide home ownership in our Out East community and beyond.”
As LISC Jacksonville looks to the future of Project Boots, the organization and its partners remain grounded in another foundational component of why Project Boots was created: facilitating opportunities to create generational wealth.
“Homeownership is a historically essential component in creating generational wealth, which has been unattainable for too many individuals in our community for far too long and it has created generational economic impacts,” said Cohen.
“The Eastside is the first step in a larger, multi-year initiative to replicate this homeownership model in other neighborhoods throughout Jacksonville that have historically very low rates of homeownership, such as Durkeeville, North Riverside, and others. While we are first improving quality of life through homeownership, we are also helping people become more financially sound and build wealth for themselves and their heirs.”
