100 Homes, 100 Days: A Look Inside What Birmingham is Doing to Fix Blight

28 November 2018

by Lauren Morgan

            This past July, Birmingham mayor Randall Woodfin announced a project entitled 100 Homes, 100 Days. This project, funded by the Neighborhood Revitalization Fund, was created in response to the 10,000 blighted houses and neighborhoods in the Birmingham area. This project promised to renovate 100 homes at the cost of $10,000 each in the 99 neighborhoods of Birmingham during a 100-day period. The construction start date was tentatively set to begin September 1st, 2018.

            In order to qualify for this initiative, participants must be the homeowner residing in the property they wished to rebuild. The homeowner must fill out an application if they are interested in their home being one of the 100. Major issues such as foundation repairs and add-one are not being supported by the initiative. They are mainly targeting cosmetic issues visible on the outside of houses. Mayor Woodfin is hoping to target mostly low income and elderly families first. 

            Unfortunately, the 100 Homes, 100 Days initiative in fact did not start this summer, and there are no plans for it to begin anytime in the near future. After multiple attempts to contact the city, I was unable to receive a comment on what kept the initiative from starting. Perhaps it was the massive budget, or the large undertaking of 100 homes being rehabilitated in 100 days. 100 days is a little over three months. This is an extremely massive undertaking for the city to accomplish in that little amount of time. It often takes much more than three months to even make small changes to one home.  Our hope is that the city will reconvene and begin to recreate this project, because if done well, it could be one of the best and most helpful proposals Birmingham has seen in a while.