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600th #BlightFight Demolition Today

Thursday, November 9th, 2023

Mayor Lester Miller and other County leaders will celebrate the 600th demolition of the Blight Fight with a press conference at 689 Richmond Street on Thursday, November 9, at 11:00 a.m.The press conference and demolition will be broadcast live at www.facebook.com/maconbibbcounty.
 
“We made a promise to actively remove blight from our neighborhoods, and in fewer than three years we have made tremendous progress,” says Mayor Lester Miller. “And we’re not done, yet. There are still more structures that need to be removed, and we are actively working to further strengthen our neighborhoods by building them back with new housing.”

The #BlightFight began in April 2021 as one of Mayor Miller’s earliest initiatives (based on community feedback). People wanted a more proactive and aggressive approach to removing blight from neighborhoods, especially since there were structures that had sat vacant and deteriorating for nearly a decade.

In addition to the removal of blighted structures, the Mayor, Commission, and Foundations have allocated millions of dollars to building new houses for people. That includes $1 million ($500,000 each from Macon-Bibb and the Peyton Anderson Foundation) for Habitat for Humanity to build 14 new affordable homes, $3.2 million ($1.6 million each from Macon-Bibb and the Knight Foundation) to NewTown Macon and the Historic Macon Foundation, and $7.5 million as a match for a revolving loan fund that will be used to build even more housing. Macon-Bibb County’s funds came from its American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) allocation.