Q&A: Athens-Clarke County Community Development Administrator Marci Irwin

Marci Irwin recently entered her second year serving as Community Development Administrator for the Housing and Community Development Department of the Athens-Clarke County Unified Government. 

Q: What originally made you interested in working in housing and community development?

A: It was a luck of the draw. I was very young when I started my career with the local government. It was in Hillsborough County, Florida, which is the Hillsborough County Government. 

I was young, and I needed health insurance. My mom told me, “You need to go get a job with some insurance.” So I got a job as the receptionist, and I landed in a department called Community Improvement. That department did a lot of things. They did code enforcement. They did Section VIII housing. There was some grant administration. There were homeowner rehabilitation programs. It was a lot of the same housing and community development things that we do here. 

I actually loved the job and I was afforded a lot of opportunities to train. I had some college, but I hadn't finished my degree, so I just kind of worked my way up through different divisions and it gave me a lot of firsthand knowledge and on-the-job training for the programs. It's very rewarding, and I’m so thankful that's where I landed.

Q: What does your role as community development administrator entail?

A: Our job in our division is to administer the Community Development Block Grant entitlement funds we get from [the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development], specifically public service agreements, public facility agreements and homeless services. We have the Continuum of Care (CoC) Competitive Grant that we work with the Homeless Coalition and we administer homeless services and project funding for that as well.

Q: What has your work in housing and community development shown you about humanity?

A: It’s kind of reaffirmed my belief in humanity because people do have a heart. You see a lot of times, the loudest people in the room are the naysayers, if you will; but when you just sit back and listen to the reasons they're upset, your heart goes out to them because there's usually a reason that they are so passionate or so angry. Athens is a great place. There's a different vibe here than I've experienced in my career. There's such a heart for people. It makes you feel good to come to work. 

Comments trimmed for length and clarity.