August 25, 2024 – With support from the City of Decatur’s American Rescue Plan funds, the Central Illinois Land Bank Authority (CILBA) has completed another home rehabilitation project located at 837 W Waggoner St, Decatur.
This is the third home completed in the land bank’s Abandonment to Rehab program. The program is a partnership between the City and CILBA that takes vacant/abandoned homes that would otherwise likely become demolition candidates and rehabilitates them. The first completed home at 439 S Maffit St. sold in March 2024 and the rehab completed last month at 1652 N Edward is now under contract.
Decatur’s Deputy City Manager, Jon Kindseth, said “it’s fantastic to see the Central IL Land Bank Authority build momentum on completing these rehabs of abandoned homes. The land bank has another five abandoned home rehabs underway and there will be more homeownership opportunities for Decatur residents in the coming months. Having partners like the land bank bring external resources like state grants to the table is extremely important for the City to scale this community revitalization work. We need more funding partners that want to see this work grow.”
Rodney Penson, the project’s general contractor with RP Construction, noted “I’m so proud of this completed project and happy the land bank had confidence in me to award a rehab contract to an emerging minority contractor. I’m excited to work on more of these projects and help the City of Decatur advance its revitalization efforts.”
Along with revitalizing neighborhoods, this rehab work is part of the Decatur Homebuyer Initiative, which is a collaboration aimed at preparing and supporting residents to become homeowners. Mike Davis, Executive Director of CILBA said – “these abandoned house rehab projects are really challenging. Some of the houses have been sitting for years and it takes a lot of time and funding to bring them up to code. Each house has a new HVAC system, roof, appliances, and the list goes on. The land bank’s goal is to ensure the new homeowner is set up for success and they don’t have a ton of very big upgrades to tackle in the first five years.”
Besides rehabbing homes, the land bank is taking a leadership role on financial literacy efforts and collaborating with organizations like the Community Investment Corporation of Decatur (CICD). CILBA, CICD, Busey Bank, the City, and the City of Praise Church are partnering to offer a credit building workshops on September 5. CICD also has homeownership classes available over the next month, which are necessary to qualify for city, state and federal down payment assistance programs. Since the homeownership class is 8 hours, CICD is providing the option for a 30-minute homeowner check-in with staff before jumping into a long course. The financial literacy workshops and courses are available on CICD’s website – www.investindecaturcicd.org/events.
Main Place Real Estate is the realtor on this land bank rehab at 837 W Waggoner St. For any home sold, the proceeds get funneled into the next round of land bank rehab projects.
