$75,000 grant to be used for research on community development

JACKSON, Tenn. — Jackson’s Community Development team is comprised of leaders of Jackson that will meet with other cities to do research on the area near the Oman Arena.

The Invest Health grant will provide 75 thousand dollars to the Jackson Community Team to research housing, food, sidewalks, and other community needs in the East Jackson area.

Claire Pierson, Community Development Coordinator for the city, shares who all will assist her team while researching.

“Community Redevelopment Agency, the city– so there’s two of us from the City Redevelopment Agency, then Healthy Communities in Jackson, Downtown, and Jackson Housing Authority are kind of what makes up the Jackson community,” said Pierson.

As of now this group will meet with other mid size cities across the states.

Their goal is to conduct research on what’s going on in their selected area.

“We’re currently gathering data, and then there’s an analysis part of it where we’ll come up with some summaries, some presentations, and hopefully present those to some other groups and have a summary available and then from that hopefully there’ll be policy recommendations and different investment type opportunities that may come up,” said Pierson.

After finishing this research, this will eventually allow developers to further help improve their areas.

“Farther out we’re hoping that the data we gather for this area will help inform like a blueprint for other areas in Jackson that we can continue this data collection so each area has the most information we can get,” said Pierson.

This research will mostly help decide what resources, like food or housing, this area in Jackson will eventually need.

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