Shortly after the city made the Housing and Redevelop-ment Authority (HRA) a

separate entity, a new executive director was hired for the HRA.

A newcomer to Albert Lea, Jon Ford, has taken over the HRA

and is hoping to lead the department into positive directions.

“Right now we are working at re-establishing the integrity of the

(HRA),” Ford said. “We want to make it more accessible and more

visible.”

Ford moved to the Albert Lea job from a similar position for Western Nebraska based out of Alliance, Neb., a town of

around 9,000 people, which he says is much like a smaller scale

Albert Lea.

“This is a little bit bigger version than what I was doing,”

he said.

“The towns are very similar demographically, as well as by average

income and housing issues.”

In Alliance, Ford said he was able to

work on many projects, many of which were unique. He said he hopes those experiences will

help him to work well in Albert Lea and bring new ideas to the HRA.

“I guess I’d say I have a pretty good background in public housing as

well as Section 8 programs,” Ford said.

Section 8 programs are federally subsidized renting programs for

renters of private properties. Ford said he hopes to be able to

implement more of these types of programs which benefit low income

individuals and families, as time goes on.

He also said that he would

like to start programs which will not only help to get ownership of

houses but also improve their homes.

“I’d like to help people, sooner or later, get into home ownership,”

he said. “In the future, through subsidized improvements of existing housing, we can

bring pride to the community. Anytime you get home improvements it

immediately affects the neighborhood and that, in turn, has a

reciprocal effect on the community.”

Ford says it will probably take his office 90 to 180 days to become

acclimated with area leadership and work out the kinks in the HRA. “We are

establishing the basics now. We have some tweaking to do, but once we

get through that we can focus on other projects,” he said.

One project he said they are considering is expanding from being just a city entity to being a county entity. He mentioned that the HRA is planning to meet with

Glenville residents on some possibilities this week and said he hopes to work with other towns as well.

Overall, Ford said he hopes that he can help the HRA become more

effective. His goal is that his office will be able to serve all the

people who need help, especially those who don’t know it exists.

“Many times people don’t always understand these programs,” he said.

“Hopefully we can market those possibilities better and make our

programs more accessible and public.”

“We already have the support of the city and the county,” Ford said.

“Our next goal is to get the support of the community.”