Jackson’s 100 Homes program is 10 houses short of its goal after a Douglas Street preview

JACKSON, Mich. — Jackson’s 100 Homes program is 10 houses short of its goal after city officials invited the public Thursday to preview new builds along Douglas Street and on the former Griswold Elementary site, WILX reported.

City Manager Jonathan Greene told the station the city built almost nothing for about 10 years before construction picked up roughly four years ago. That drought, he said, fed decades of population decline that the program has helped reverse.

“Before we started building about four years ago, we went about 10 years and built almost nothing in the city,” Greene said, according to WILX. “For 70 years, our population could be counted in a downward trend. But not anymore.”

The program puts new homes on vacant lots and offers $25,000 in down-payment assistance to eligible buyers. Nineteen homes will stand on the former Griswold Elementary property once work there is finished, the station reported.

Grant Coordinator Cory Mays said stable housing is the point, not a one-time count. “We can’t expect our kids to be successful in school without stable housing. We can’t expect our families to live and work and stay here in our community if they don’t have stable, affordable, and top-quality housing,” he told WILX.

Mays said the city will keep building past 100 homes because demand for affordable and transitional housing remains. Full program details and eligibility rules are posted through city housing and grant offices; WILX’s Oct. 8 report is the public account of Thursday’s preview.

Sources:
WILX, “Jackson previews latest builds in ’100 Homes’ program,” Oct. 8, 2026, https://www.wilx.com/2026/10/08/jackson-previews-latest-builds-100-homes-program/
Photo: Dwight Burdette, “New house under construction Pittsfield Township Michigan.JPG,” Aug. 23, 2011, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), cropped, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:New_house_under_construction_Pittsfield_Township_Michigan.JPG

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