Having house troubles? Have no house? Call city specialist

Jamie Bethel spent 11 years in social work before taking a job as the city’s housing specialist. But to hear her tell it, she never left helping people behind.

“A lot of people think of the housing department and code enforcement as this government bad guy, telling them they must fix this or that,” Bethel said. “But honestly, we really do want to help and work with homeowners to fix problems. A lot of my job is connecting people to resources in town to make that happen.”

Bethel wears many hats as housing specialist. Currently she’s in the middle of a grant process that will allocate $88,000 to homeowners to help them remove lead paint in their homes. She also works with area charitable agencies in making sure Sedalia’s homeless population finds shelter.

“I’d love to work myself out of business,” Bethel said with a laugh. “I mean, that’s the ultimate goal for any town — no homeless and all the houses are in perfect safe and sanitary condition. I don’t think that’ll happen any time soon, but I keep working toward that goal.”

Community Development Director John Simmons said Bethel’s main duty is to be a liaison between the city and the public.
 
“Jamie’s main job is assisting people with public nuisance complaints from code enforcement through the court system and finding out what resources are available to them, either through nonprofit agencies or her contacts within the community,” Simmons said. “It’s a lot of coordinating and assisting.”

Bethel likes to talk about the “health” of a town; not the health of the occupants, but of its buildings and homes.

“Put simply, you don’t want to have the ugliest house on the block, and you don’t want one broken house bring down your property values,” she explained. “When people are looking to relocate to a new town or businesses are thinking of building a company here, home values can really affect their decision.”

Bethel pointed out that neighborhoods with schools are especially important.

“How many people walk or drive through that neighborhood every day to drop their kids off at school and see those houses?” she asked. “I think it starts small. Taking pride in the outside appearance of your home directly translates to taking pride in your neighborhood. If your neighbor decides to repaint their house, for example, often you’ll start to look at your own home and think it could use a repair here or an update there.”

Bethel said if more neighbors worked together, entire blocks could be transformed.
 
“That’s something I really think Sedalia could be better at, getting to know neighbors,” she said. “Not every block is like this, but it makes me sad when we sometimes don’t even know who lives next door. (The housing department) will get calls from people complaining their neighbor’s trash is in their yard and sometimes I want to tell them, ‘Well, is it an elderly person who can’t get around so well?’ I think helping others has fallen by the wayside a little bit.”

To promote helping others, Bethel is involved in a new project from the Pettis County Community Partnership in holding a communitywide service day in April. The service day, which is still being planned, will encourage teams of volunteers to go to specific homes and neighborhoods and offer services to help solve code enforcement problems.

“I think it’s great that the city and the PCCP are working closely together on a project like this,” Bethel said. “There are a lot of code enforcement problems in Sedalia that only require a little work, but sometimes the homeowner is elderly or disabled or just doesn’t have the money to fix the problem. Hopefully, it will encourage people to come out and meet their neighbors. Let’s get block parties going again and neighborhood barbecues.”

Aside from her contacts with the Partnership, Bethel also uses her resources as a former social worker to help Sedalia’s homeless population, adding that until she started working for the city, she didn’t notice the number of homeless people.
“I’ll be honest, I didn’t think about it,” she said. “But now I know of so many people who are on the brink of being foreclosed on or not making rent.

“It’s incredibly stressful to be on the edge like that and not know how to navigate the system of services available.

“That’s where I come in and help. I like to think of the city government as a big customer service agency. I mean, really, we’re here to serve you.”

Simmons echoed Bethel’s statement.

“We created (the housing specialist) position to tackle all the aspects of housing issues,” he said. “Jamie is able to bring the city perspective to the table and really give people a clear understanding of what they need to do.”

“Sedalia’s housing situation didn’t happen overnight, the good and the bad,” Bethel said. “And it won’t get fixed overnight. I just keep thinking of it as one home at a time.”