DUBLIN, Ga. — Some blighted homes in Dublin are getting a new life, thanks to a nonprofit that's cleaning up neighborhoods around town.
The Dublin-Laurens Land Bank Authority fixes up homes to make them livable again, and then they sell or rent them at affordable prices.
Two of them were showed at an open house on Wednesday, including a two-bedroom home at 312 Arch Street.
"It was just really run-down, delipidated, like just really bad," Belinda Robinson said.
Robinson says she's been in the neighborhood since 1996.
"The original people who were here moved out, moved away (or) passed away," she said.
The property wasn't kept up, and over time, it became run-down - an eye-sore to the neighborhood. That's when the Dublin-Laurens Land Bank Authority stepped in, and cleaned up the property with renovations and repairs.
Sonya Calvin is executive director for the Dublin-Laurens Land Bank Authority.
"It's a non-profit that manages tax-delinquent land or properties. Abandoned properties, vacant properties," she said.
Managing them looks like either cleaning them up, or tearing them down and re-building the home, like they did with a property at 822 North Church Street.
"Now, we see a whole different property, and this is the first time that there's been a new build in this whole community in 50 years," Calvin said.
Robinson said it's bigger than just one home - it's about changing the look of the entire neighborhood.
"Now it has begun to thrive again," Robinson said. "It's like a flower. You give it a little water, and it blossoms."
By solving the blight problem, another problem is also getting tackled at the same time.
"We try to put these houses in a category, in a price range, that working people can be able to afford," Calvin said.
She said another group, Purple Dog Properties, will be in charge of renting or selling the properties.
The City of Dublin has a nuisance code that forbids things like leaving trash on private property, and not keeping up vacant lots. Dublin Mayor Joshua Kight wants residents to know they are enforcing nuisance properties, and they had eight cases go to court Wednesday, and a full docket planned for the rest of the year.