Ten years after a devastating flood compelled him to depart the city he loves, Sonny Smith is lastly coming dwelling.
“Glory, hallelujah! I am right here,” he exclaimed.
He is one of many first to maneuver into a brand new reasonably priced housing growth in Lyons.
“Once they mentioned they had been constructing these they had been individuals like me saying, ‘Sonny come again, come dwelling, come again to Lyons,'” he mentioned.
Smith, a neighborhood artist, is amongst those that misplaced every part they personal within the 2013 flood, together with a few of his early authentic work. Like many residents, he could not afford to maneuver again. The flood washed away two of the city’s three cell dwelling parks and a 3rd of the land, which is now in a flood plain.
“It was like, ‘what will we do?’ Nobody knew the place to go,” says Smith.
Whereas Lyons was capable of rebuild roads and bridges, Mayor Hollie Rogin says rebuilding the group has been tougher: “We remorse that we have not been capable of deliver all people dwelling.”
However they’re bringing dwelling these they will after securing grant cash and partnering with Summit Housing on 40 new reasonably priced items. Fourty-three cell properties had been misplaced within the flood.
“We gave first proper of refusal to people who had been displaced in flood,” says Rogin.
The highway dwelling has been particularly arduous for Smith. After the flood took his possessions, an an infection took his leg: “You’ll be able to’t change that however you at all times know you may rebuild and you alter your life.”
Life is now like a clean canvas for the painter, who in some ways embodies the ‘grit grace and gratitude’ that Rogin says has come to outline Lyons during the last 10 years: “It needs to be a celebration of how far we have come and the blue sky future that is forward of us.”
Along with working with Summit Housing on the brand new growth, Lyons has additionally labored with Habitat for Humanity of the Saint Vrain Valley to exchange some reasonably priced housing.
