Skeptics are becoming true believers in DeSoto

DeSOTO — The right pieces have fallen into place for this tiny community some 35 miles north of Albany, pieces that most in the community never would have imagined.

It started with a collaboration between former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams; Rewiring America, a nonprofit whose goal is to help homes, businesses and communities go electric, to reduce the emissions that cause climate change, but also to lower people's monthly bills and improve the health and comfort of their homes, and Georgia Power. Abrams and Rewiring America decided to move forward with a pilot program that would bring needed appliance upgrades to homes in poor neighborhoods, upgrades that would be life-changing for recipients and help improve the environment, one home at a time.

Five to 10 homes at test neighborhoods in Wisconsin, Oregon, Oklahoma and East Point in north Georgia received the upgrades, but in the state that Abrams now calls home, the entire small community of DeSoto, Georgia, population 122, was given the opportunity to sign up for upgrades that include heating/air conditioning units, induction ranges or heat pump water heaters.

Many in the small south Georgia community were skeptical at first.

Enter Rosemery Jones, a retired educator who, after giving Abrams a tour of the community, was coerced into volunteering as Abrams' "boots on the ground in DeSoto."

"People were definitely skeptical initially," Jones, who actually lives in the nearby Leslie community but "knows everybody in DeSoto, said. "When Stacey held a community meeting at our City Hall, it was standing room only. That convinced a lot of people that this was not some scam. Still, a lot of people expressed mistrust in an opportunity that they said was 'too good to be true.'

"But seeing is believing. We're finishing up the home improvements on the first 25 residences selected and getting ready to start the next 25. We had 75 sign up pretty quickly, and when others saw what was happening, they started calling me to sign up. We jumped to 86 real quick, now we're right at 100. We're going to keep doing this until all houses are upgraded."

Count long-time DeSoto residents Betty Thomas and Stanley Billings, whose homes had been prepped for work by Atlanta-based and local contractors and were scheduled for work to commence, among the skeptics-turned-believers.

"A lot of people said they were thinking about signing up but backed out," Thomas, 71, said. "Someone left a flyer on my door that told about the program, and when I read it I thought it was just another of those government programs that never came to be.

"I got a couple of calls, talked with folks about the program and decided to go ahead and give it a shot. I never expected all this. They've got everything ready and are coming back later today to start the actual work. I'm going to have some real air conditioning and some real hot water in this place. Right now, the hot water runs out so quick you hardly have enough time to take a shower. They're making me a happy woman."

Billings, 60, was heating his 1,100-square-foot home with space heaters and cooling it with a single window air-conditioning unit. An Air Force 1 HVAC crew from metro Atlanta was set to start the work on the house the next day.

"I honestly didn't know if I trusted these folks when they told us what they planned to do," Billings said. "But I'm glad I signed up. This is going to make a big difference in this house, and they said my utilities bills would go down, too. That's good because my bills for this little place run from $300 to $400 in the summer.

"The great thing — and I'm hearing this from other people, too — is that they're doing what they said they would do. I can tell you, this gives a lot of folks around here more faith in the people who say they want to look out for us."

Jones, who is signing up DeSoto residents for the Vitalizing DeSoto program as a volunteer, is certainly key to the program moving forward.

"A lot of the people who were skeptical at first are signing up now," she said. "I feel like everyone involved in the program has helped to gain the citizens' rapport. My husband says a lot of it is because they trust me. I hope he's right.

"We are moving quickly now to get things done. We hope to have this project wrapped up by June. Then we can see just how much of an impact this project will have."