Business View - July 2015 131
meet community needs of low and moderate income
persons within the City. Its HOME funds are used for
affordable housing development, in partnership with
non-profit and for-profit organizations. Currently, the
City is constructing ten new units of affordable hous-
ing for seniors in close proximity to its downtown area.
Some of the CDBG allocation is also being used to
fund a business incubator in partnership with Albany
Community Together, Inc. (ACT!). ACT! is a public-pri-
vate economic action partnership established in 1997
to provide financial assistance to small businesses
that lack access to traditional sources of capital, i.e.
banks. It often works in partnership with those banks
to meet the credit needs of small business owners.
Since 2001 ACT! has provided over $6 million in loan
funding to 121 businesses, and leveraged over $30
million in private funding while creating 350 jobs in the
35 counties of Southwest and West Georgia, where it
operates.
Thelma Johnson is the President and CEO of ACT! and
serves as the liaison between the city of Albany and its
Micro Business Enterprise Center (MBEC), which ser-
vices small businesses and entrepreneurs and which
also contains the incubator program that provides re-
sources and services to help new businesses start,
grow, and succeed.
Johnson characterizes the typical person who might
apply to the MBEC’s incubator program for assistance:
“Someone who either has started a business which
is less than two years old, or is looking to start a busi-
ness. They would come to the center to inquire about
the space (the MBEC offers temporary office space to
Thelma A. Johnson, President / CEO
