Mayor George Flaggs Jr. wants the city to take a more active role in resolving the city’s housing problems, moving to appoint a committee to examine the city’s needs and develop a five-year plan to start meeting them.

Flaggs Wednesday appointed a committee of Vicksburg Housing Authority executive director Ben Washington, Community Development Director Victor Gray-Lewis, city housing director Gertrude Young and VHA commissioners Abraham Green, Fermika Smith, John Ferguson, Kimberly Taylor and Christopher Barnett to begin setting the plan. Washington and Gray-Lewis will serve as co-chairs for the committee.

“We (the city and VHA) are responsible for housing in this city, one way or the other,” Flaggs said. “I think the city needs to take the forefront of this, because if we don’t do it, it won’t get done.”

The mayor said he wants the committee to examine several housing issues affecting the city.

“One of the things we need to be talking about is affordable housing,” he said. “Affordable housing can mean anything, because you can have all the money in the world and have bad credit and you still can’t qualify.

“I don’t think a bad credit score represents a risk,” he said, outlining circumstances like divorce, where the actions of someone’s spouse can affect a person when it comes to their credit score.

He said the city needs to begin keeping a record of available housing in the city and the number of homes that have been demolished so officials will know what homes might be available to potential residents.

“We’re demolishing a lot of houses,” Flaggs said. “You can’t demolish a house and leave a vacant lot and then have folks struggle with finding a place to stay. We’ve got to look at that.”

He said he believes in homeownership, adding, “but not everyone can own a home, and it hurts, y’all, to see someone (a property owner) come in and not keep up their property.” Flaggs said the city will continue enforcing code violations to ensure that homes remain livable.

Besides trying to save existing homes, he wants to encourage more subdivision development in the city and enhance the first-time homebuyer’s program to help more people get a mortgage to buy a house.

He also wants to explore a plan to encourage condominium development along the Mississippi River as a way to attract employees at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Engineering Research and Development Center.

“Some people don’t want to buy a house, and some don’t want to live in an apartment, but people will buy a condominium, because it represents an investment,” he said.

Flaggs said it was important the city and VHA share information about housing issues and work together to resolve them.

“I want to take housing (in Vicksburg) to another level and reduce everything we’ve discussed to a plan and make it available to the public, “ he said.