THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, August 1, 1994 TAG: 9408010033
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ROBERT LITTLE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Long : 114 lines
The weeds and trash have long piled up in Huntersville.
The houses have long been crumbling.
And the residents have been searching for an answer - something to break the cycle of poverty and blight that is strangling their tiny, century-old community.
They never thought it would come in the form of a 36-year-old computer programmer from Portsmouth.
Jay Smallwood showed up in the north Suffolk neighborhood this spring, knocking on doors and handing out fliers.
He talked about things like community development and neighborhood empowerment; he said he could help the residents solve their worries.
He seemed an unlikely hero: He wasn't from the neighborhood and he wasn't from the government.
He didn't have a lot of experience, and he didn't have a lot of money.
But he had an office and some connections.
And he kept saying he could save Huntersville.
It wasn't long after Smallwood showed up that he and 80 neighbors were clearing trash, tires and debris from vacant lots and ditches. City trucks came to haul it away.
Smallwood even brought in a steel-drum band to hammer out a little inspiration.
Now he says he has access to state money that could provide help to the six families who still have outhouses. Another $62,500 in federal money could be on the way soon, a grant he would have to match with private donations.
There are 200 people living in Huntersville, many of them hardened critics accustomed to hollow promises. But at least a few of them have started to believe.
``We'll go along with anybody if it looks like it will do us some good,'' said Dora Adams, a 66-year Huntersville resident.
``And we're already seeing the changes,'' she said. ``He's already got something going.''
Smallwood was born in Suffolk, grew up east of downtown and attended the old John F. Kennedy High School and Tidewater Community College.
He worked a few years in New Jersey, at a computer programming job with AT & T.
But he wanted to come back to Hampton Roads. He returned after a few years and settled in Portsmouth, looking to switch careers.
Smallwood isn't just a do-gooder: He's a budding real estate man hoping to make a career in affordable housing.
He tried for three years to get started, in fact, hoping to build his fledgling MECCA Foundation into a viable nonprofit enterprise.
He and a group of area bankers, Realtors and merchants formed MECCA - Making Every Contact Count Again - in 1991.
Smallwood was the sole employee. The others provided a little money and professional advice.
He worked part-time at Radio Shack while trying to attract participants in a federal self-help housing program. But he never got anything started.
Then he teamed up with the Portsmouth Community Development Group, a not-for-profit agency credited with reviving Portsmouth's Prentis Place. The group was looking to expand into Suffolk, and MECCA was looking for work.
So Smallwood and Brian Hicks, director of the Portsmouth group, applied for and won an $82,500, three-year state grant to administer a community-based housing program.
They used it to get Smallwood an office and start paying him a salary, then went looking for a neighborhood to adopt.
The two drove around Suffolk in search of run-down communities. In a city notorious for its housing woes, they had little trouble finding candidates.
But Huntersville, the old farming community off Interstate 664, seemed friendly, isolated and ``small enough that you could get your arms around it,'' Smallwood said.
He called a community meeting and went to work.
He scheduled two cleanup days to address what residents called their most pressing concern.
Then he recruited six Huntersville residents as MECCA board members, a move necessary to qualify for some grants.
Now Smallwood spends his days huddled in a downtown Suffolk office, calling investors and applying for government funding.
He doesn't go after grants just for Huntersville: He'll tackle just about any housing problem if he thinks he can get the money.
But his state grant requires him to build or renovate at least three houses in Huntersville by next April.
Smallwood hasn't fixed any houses yet, but he has access to about $65,000 in state money that can be used to renovate them or add indoor plumbing. His next step is to advertise throughout the neighborhood, looking for people who qualify to receive aid.
Eventually, he hopes to tear down the vacant houses in Huntersville, renovate dilapidated ones and build still more.
That would attract new home-buyers to Huntersville, a key to keeping the neighborhood alive, he said. And a key to keeping him in business.
If Smallwood pulls it all off, he will have accomplished what the city government and housing authority have struggled years to achieve.
If he doesn't, he'll lose his grant and his job, and Huntersville will be on its own again.
``It's not an easy thing to do,'' said Smallwood, sitting in his stuffy, plywood-paneled office.
``It's frustrating sometimes, trying to bring it all together,'' he said.
``But when you go to a place like Huntersville and see the problems they have, that keeps you going. You can't turn your back. It makes it easier to try.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by MICHAEL KESTNER, Staff
Jay Smallwood
Photo by Michael Kestner, Staff
Jay Smallwood shakes hands with Suffolk City Councilwoman Marion Bea
Rogers at a recent cleanup in Huntersville. Volunteers cleared
trash, tires and debris from vacant lots.
KEYWORDS: HOUSING COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT REDEVELOPMENT
REHABILITATION by CNB