The neighbors came by for the ribbon-cutting ceremony of a new house in Woodlawn, and they were happy.

“This is probably the first new house built in this neighborhood in 50 years,” said Jennifer Saldiver, who lives across the street from the i3 Academy charter school that opened in 2019 and a block from the new home construction. “It’s good for property values in this area.”

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition unveiled two of its latest GROWTH homes, part of an effort to build 200 new homes in Birmingham neighborhoods where home ownership levels are low.

Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin, City Council member J.T. Moore and Ed Gorman, managing director of GROWTH by NCRC, took part in the ribbon-cutting and then toured the house.

Another completed home across the street was open for tours. An adjacent lot showed the first signs of a foundation for another new house.

Next to the house where Gorman cut the ribbon stood another house with a hole in its roof. That one will be rehabilitated. Another one on the other side is abandoned from fire damage. That will be demolished to make way for a new house.

There are other dilapidated and neglected houses in the West Woodlawn neighborhood. “Gravity is taking them down if they don’t fix them,” Saldiver said.

The new home construction “will have the unintended consequence of gentrification with displacement,” said Mashonda Taylor, executive director of Woodlawn United.

But it will also build the values for homes owned by people in the surrounding neighborhood, which will “create new paths to prosperity and generational wealth through homeownership.”

The two finished homes in and the one under construction are the first of 16 houses slated to be built in Woodlawn.

“This is another example of how bank capital and community-driven revitalization can produce the kind of results of which we can all be proud,” said Gorman, managing director of GROWTH by NCRC, whose mission is to make homeownership possible for more people.

This project is part of a larger commitment by GROWTH by NCRC to build 200 homes around the city, with Woodlawn and Oak Hill in Belview Heights as initial demonstrations of that plan.

The NCRC Housing Rehab Fund, a private equity real estate fund, focuses on rehabbing old houses and building new single-family houses to provide affordable homeownership opportunities in low-to-moderate-income communities.

“The City of Birmingham’s partnership with GROWTH by NCRC has been transformative in several of our neighborhoods,” Woodfin said. “This partnership goes directly to the heart of our priority to revitalize neighborhoods, create more affordable housing options and improve the path to homeownership for residents.”

Woodlawn is a historic neighborhood situated east of downtown Birmingham, spanning roughly 15 blocks near the junction of Interstates 20 and 59.

“For the last 12 years, Woodlawn United has worked alongside the residents of Woodlawn to create a vision; one centered around the belief when we all work collectively, we are the change in our community,” Taylor said.

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