Families, West LV getting a new start

Erin Neff

Tuesday, Aug. 10, 1999 | 11:05 a.m.

Cordelia Freeman and her two children have lived in a house before, but something is very different about the new place they got Monday morning.

"This is different because my Mom bought it," said Stay-C Freeman, 9, surveying his landscaped front yard on Van Buren Avenue near F Street in West Las Vegas.

For the first time in an estimated two decades the once prosperous, then blighted area has given ground to four new single-family houses and talk of revitalization.

Cordelia Freeman accepted the keys to her three-bedroom home with nervousness about the responsibility and excitement about her piece of the American dream coming true.

"This is permanence," said Freeman, a respiratory therapist attending classes to become an auto repair technician. "This is someplace we can call home."

Almost as enticing to Freeman as her home created by Westside New Pioneers Community Development Corp., is the chance to raise Stay-C and her 10-year-old daughter, Linyanti, in an area ripe for revitalization.

"I want to be part of that urban renewal" Freeman said. "Once the surrounding neighbors here see this, I think they'll get involved."

Westside New Pioneers President Michael "Shea" Jackson simply told about 100 people gathered at a housewarming party for the four new homeowners that "We did it."

"Over the years I have seen this area go from a thriving community to what you see today," Jackson said, looking several blocks away at neglected homes, vacant lots and struggling businesses.

The four homes are the first of 13 planned along Van Buren in the city's original McWilliams Townsite. Six more homes adjacent to the ones handed over Monday will be built facing east on F Street along what is currently a vacant, glass-speckled lot where stray dogs forage for food.

Westside New Pioneers, which formed in 1996, joined with the city of Las Vegas, the Local Initiatives Support Corp., Nevada State Bank and other lenders to make the "vision a reality," Jackson said.

The first four homes were funded by $140,000 from the city, a $150,000 Nevada State Bank loan and $120,000 in LISC loans.

Each home costs about $105,000 but is made affordable for lower-income residents thanks to subsidies, according to Rosetta Jordan, Westside New Pioneers executive director.

The homes are 1,254-square-feet with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, both front and rear yards and a two-car garage.

"Those efforts that are led by the community, for the community have the best chance for success," said Edward Lloyd, the chief financial officer for Local Initiatives Support Corp., a national community development support organization. "This is how middle-income America defines success. Low-income America deserves that chance."

The four homeowners each received a welcome mat, gift certificates and money to buy a refrigerator from the various community partners involved.

Roosevelt Nibblett held his 18-month-old son, Roosevelt III, as he received the keys to his new home.

"I'm too excited," Nibblett said as young Roosevelt snacked on red grapes.

Nibblett, a casino bellman who moved here from Louisiana in 1971, said he has been renting apartments since he arrived in town.

"But this is a lot of difference," Nibblett said. "This is a home."