Southern Mutual Help Association Inc

Programs: Building rural communities smhas building rural communities program includes family and community development activities as well as the west end revitalization initiative. Smhas family and community development provides the education, training and technical assistance that families need to gain assets and build their family wealth. Smha offers anti-predatory lending education, homeownership counseling, and skills transfer center training. (the skills transfer center is smhas mobile unit, transported to a familys homesite, that gives families hands-on experience with basic home repair and maintenance. Smhas west end revitalization initiative was launched in 2008 in partnership with the city of new iberia, a donor, and community residents committed to revitalizing the historically african-american west end of new iberia. Smha helped establish four neighborhood association in the west end that are now operating under independent leadership. A team of leaders emerged from these neighborhood associations and created the west end council of neighborhood associations (wecna) as a separate 501(c)3. In addition to leadership development, over the past eight years smha has attracted volunteers and resources to construct five new homes the first new-construction for homeownership in the west end in decades rehabilitate one business and 29 owner-occupied homes, and restored eight homes and two businesses impacted by the devastating flooding of august 2016.

rural recovery - smha's rural recovery response, created in response to the devasting hurricanes of 2005, is a new model of rebuilding and recovery that reflects smha's philosophy of self-help, an entrepreneurial approach and an emphasis on family and community development. The objective of the initiative is to help homeowner families and small businesses - fisher and fisher-related businesses in particular - recover and rebuild following 2005's hurricane katrina and rita and 2008's hurricane gustav and ike and in the 2010 bp oil disaster in the gulf of mexico. Since its inception, smha's rural recovery response has connected thousands of impacted families and small businesses to grants,loans and volunteer labor that help make recovery possible.

teche ridge is a master-planned $150 million traditional neighborhood design/smart growth development on 100 acres in iberia parish. When fully built over the next 10-12 years, teche ridge will provide approximately 600 homes at eight different price points, commercial property, and civic space. Teche ridge is expected to result in economic impact of nearly a billion dollars (using a x7 multiplier) in iberia parish. Smha, through teche ridge, llc, is developing teche ridge to demonstrate a new way of living together in community. Rather than segregating families based on how much they can afford to pay for a home (for example, gated communities for the wealth and hud projects for the not-so-wealthy), smha is implementing an innovative shared appreciation model: affordability is created through an entrepreneurial financing model rather than by locating lower priced units in less desirable areas or giving them less curb appeal.