A Vicksburg social service agency is getting into the housing business with the development of property donated by a member of its advisory board.

We Care Community Service Inc., 909 Walnut St., plans to begin development within 45 to 60 days of the property, off Baker Street, near Military Avenue and Mission 66, said the Rev. James Bowman, its board chairman and a military science instructor at Vicksburg High School.

The land has been donated by advisory board member Harrison Havard and We Care has received a $450,000 grant from the state government to build affordable houses on it, Bowman said. That amount is to cover about two-thirds of the cost of construction, Bowman said.

&#8220We don’t have a lot, but I believe we should share what we have,” Havard said.

The 300-by-100-foot tract extends southeast from Baker Street and will have room for five houses.

We Care’s executive director, Rose Bingham, said five, three-bedroom rental houses units are to be built there.

Bowman said the agency’s decision to go into the housing business was based on the organization’s mission.

&#8220We’ve always tried to help the needy,” Bowman said, adding that the project was consistent with the vision of Tommy L. Williams, who founded We Care in 1972.

Only one of the lots is accessible from Baker Street. A circular driveway is to be built to provide access to the other four lots, Bowman said.

Havard said he donated the land on one condition: that a statue of St. Jude, the patron saint of hopeless causes, be placed on the site.

In addition to the home-construction project, We Care plans to begin a program that would offer matching-grant money for people who qualify and use it to establish a type of bank account called an Individual Development Account.

&#8220We’re interested, in conjunction with the housing program, in helping to develop some kind of saving plan,” Bingham said.

To establish the accounts, We Care would need help from at least one local bank or credit union as a holder of the accounts.

Mississippi’s largest IDA program is administered by the community-action agency for counties in southwestern Mississippi by Adams Franklin Jefferson Copiah Community Action Agency.

The director of that program, Fannie Brown, said AFJCC partners with all local banks in its area and about 154 residents there have opened IDAs. Seven of those have bought homes using money saved and matched through the program, she said.

The accounts can be begun with as little as $500 and monthly contributions can be as low as $30.

&#8220We partner with anybody and everybody who has anything to do with helping someone purchase a house,” Brown said.

Funds that account-holders contribute are generally matched with between three and eight times their amounts, depending on how much grant money the organizations that administer them have received, Brown said.

Such grant funds generally come with a requirement that they be 80 percent of an amount of which the other 20 percent comes from another source, Irvin said. Banks that participate in IDA programs receive credit toward a set of federal lending requirements called the Community Reinvestment Act, Irvin said.

The Jackson-based Foundation for the Mid South, a regional development foundation for Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, has targeted IDAs for promotion in those states and southeast Texas. Its director for that program, Necole S. Irvin, said a network called the Mississippi IDA Partnership was begun about 2 1/2 years ago.

&#8220It’s an entire process in helping move someone from one place to another where they are owning an asset,” Irvin said.

In addition to the Natchez IDA program, at least seven others have been begun in the state, including five led by community-action agencies, Irwin said. Louisiana has a similar partnership and about 600 people have purchased homes in that state using IDAs, Irvin said.