The St. Johns Housing Partnership is eager to expand its weatherization services into Clay County, our neighbor to the northwest.
The program had been working for several years under the Housing Partnership of NE Florida (HPNEF) in Jacksonville, which recently transferred the contract to SJHP.
Late last year, SJHP was approved to operate the Clay County program, which has had tremendous success. The county is quite spread out, covering more than 640 square miles from the rural areas of Middleburg and Clay Hill to the lake town of Keystone Heights to the county seat of Green Cove Springs and back up to densely populated Orange Park.
SJHP is proud to welcome as our Clay County team: Walter Dunn and Anthony Platts, inspectors, and Guy Price, office manager. Dunn and Platts, formerly with HPNEF, are weatherizing 25 homes per month. Doing the work planned over the next 14 months, they will spend more than $1.4 million in Clay County.
Anthony said the best part of his job “is seeing the smiles we put on clients’ faces after we have made a difference in their lives.” Anthony has been with the program for two and one-half years.
Walter also enjoys working with the clients and said, “Helping folks reduce their energy bill is a pretty good thing to do.”
The office currently has 100 applications in various stages of progress. Staff hope to get the word out even more in the densely populated but sprawling county.
Bill Lazar, SJHP executive director, is also looking forward to expanding services into this new neighborhood in 2011.
“This is the right time to be moving forward in Clay County. We have a great team in place in Orange Park who are anxious and ready to spread the word about weatherization.”
SJHP looks forward to working with the new staff and hope to eventually develop additional volunteer projects to complement the weatherization work.
Welcome aboard Clay County!
