Louisville homeowners receive new roofs from city program

LOUISVILLE, G.A. (WJBF) – Some people living in Louisville are getting new roofs installed. It’s thanks to a new city rehabilitation program.

“A homeowner would’ve been looking at around 10 thousand dollars to get that done, : said Dwonn Geisbrecht, the owner of Heritage Roofing and Gutters.

But with money from the American Rescue Plan and a 25 thousand dollar donation from Georgia Power, homeowners like Jeanette Dixon and Pauline Morgan won’t have to pay anything at all.

“I know I needed a roof, because the roof was like over 25 years old, ” said
Jeanette Dixon. Dixon has lived in this house for more than 40 years. She says it’s in good condition, except the roof.

“One spot that was over here, that I had my brother in law patch up, because it started leaking down this window right here,” said Dixon.

She says when it would rain really hard, the roof would leak into her living room.Pauline had the same problem.

She says, “It was leaking a little into my house, you know, just a few spots, and on the inside of it, when it leaked it would leave brown spots.”

And their story isn’t any different from the 15 other homeowners who opted into the city’s program.

“They were all in poor shape, needing to be replaced. A lot of rotten wood once we tore the shingles off, that had to be replaced. We had to use a bunch of plywood to get them back to where they need to be, but overall really poor condition,” said Geisbrecht.

The city’s rehabilitation program started last year and is geared towards low-income homeowners. City leaders assessed each applicant’s home to find out which repairs were needed the most, and they found that the roofs were the place to start.

“If your roof is bad, you’re going to get leaks in the home and on the exterior parts of the home. So, the most important thing to do if you have a bad roof is to replace that roof as soon as possible, and that was our first priority, and that’s the first thing that were working on right now,” said Jenny Smith, the mayor of Louisville.

Program leaders started those repairs this week and so far they’ve replaced the roofs on three different homes.

“We have a lot of older homeowners in Louisville who are on fixed incomes, but they’re really responsible,” she said.

Mayor Smith says they’ll begin bids for electrical and plumbing repairs in the coming weeks. She hopes to open applications for other homeowners this summer.