CEDAR RAPIDS — To get the concept, think Cameron Proctor. Without seeking it, Proctor — a 21-year-old master welder and brand-new homeowner with a good credit history and a 30-year mortgage — has become something of a poster boy for a multimillion-dollar neighborhood transformation. It is a change fueled by Four Oaks’ Affordable Housing Network [...]
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CEDAR RAPIDS — About a dozen volunteers spent their Saturday morning scraping paint off a southeast Cedar Rapids home. A Brush with Kindness, part of Habitat for Humanity, assists low-income families with home repairs. Rea Stull, the homeowner of the first Brush with Kindness project of 2013, stood outside 1620 Seventh Ave. SE in awe. [...]
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CEDAR RAPIDS — Julia and Tim Bickel have lived in numerous homes, from Michigan to Missouri; Illinois to Alaska and even in China, but chose to retire in a historic district in Cedar Rapids. “That tells you that this neighborhood, to me, feels like home,” said Julia Bickel, 64. “It feels like the neighborhood where [...]
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Families looking for affordable homes may find common cause with southeast Cedar Rapids’ sometimes-troubled Wellington Heights neighborhood through Four Oaks’ TotalChild program. “I’m glad somebody got this idea and did this,” said Sue Prime. “It’ll be a nice place to live.” Prime, 55, was sitting on the front porch of her newly renovated home one [...]
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Linn County will continue to help fund the Neighborhood Revitalization Service’s efforts to rehabilitate Cedar Rapids housing. County supervisors voted Wednesday morning to allocate $5,000 to NRS from the county’s economic development fund. The non-profit received $10,000 from the county in April; Wednesday’s grant comes from the budget for the fiscal year starting July 1. [...]
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CEDAR RAPIDS — Terry Bilsland pushed sausages as they sizzled on a grill in front of his southeast Cedar Rapids home last night. Around 20 of Bilsland’s neighbors gathered around the grill and other nearby tables filled with food as part of Tuesday’s National Night Out, an event aimed at strengthening community bonds across [...]
continue »By The Gazette Editorial Board —– Compared to many cities similar in size, Cedar Rapids is a latecomer to preserving and re-purposing many of its historic buildings. The wave of preservation efforts that took hold in many Iowa communities and across the country several decades ago never seemed to take hold here. That could [...]
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By Tara Farris —- I am a longtime resident of Iowa and have resided in the Wellington Heights area of Cedar Rapids for almost five years. I had a son in October, and I am growing more concerned with his safety as well as that of my husband and myself. I hear [...]
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When Kathy Harwood looks outside her home of the past 31 years, what she sees is far from ideal. “I try not to look outside,” said Harwood, who lives at the corner of 18th Street and 6th Avenue SE in Cedar Rapids, at the eastern edge of the Wellington Heights neighborhood. In recent days, someone [...]
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Is the city of Cedar Rapids putting all its eggs in one basket when it comes to the downtown area? Two at-large candidates for the Cedar Rapids city council brought up this question at a recent debate hosted by KCRG and The Gazette. “The downtown is getting more focus than the rest of the town,” [...]
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