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The Hancock Housing Resource Center is a
local HUD-approved, non-profit, that provides free services to
county residents and works to improve conditions of housing,
replaces damaged homes, creates new housing, fosters affordable
homeownership and provides foreclosure and homelessness
prevention counseling.
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 Rhonda
Rhodes has served as
the President of the HRC since it incorporated as a
Non-Profit in November of 2008.
She is a Certified Housing
Counselor and a Certified Professional in Homeownership
and Community Lending.
Rhonda’s background is in
healthcare, but most recently before the start of the
HRC, she worked for the Hancock County Chamber of
Commerce.
Under the direction of the
Chamber, she created and managed the Hancock Community
Development Foundation.
She currently serves on the
Boards for the Hancock Community Development Foundation,
Alliance for Health, Girl Scouts of Greater Mississippi,
Bay St. Louis Babe Ruth League, and is a member of the
Rotary Club.
Rhonda has lived in Hancock
County for 22 years, is married to Rocky Rhodes and has
3 children.
In the very little free
time that she has, she enjoys watching baseball and
painting.
Go Saints!
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 Kelly
Kowalski is a Case Manager Supervisor and
coordinates HRC programs.
She is a certified Housing
Counselor and Foreclosure Counselor.
Kelly has been with the HRC
since September 2008.
Her background is in
finance and she was an assistant manager at a finance
company before coming to the HRC.
She grew up in Ocean
Springs and has lived on the coast her whole life.
She has been married for 15
years and has two daughters, who are 14 and 12.
She enjoys reading, playing
tennis, and watching her daughters play soccer.
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 Bryan
Taylor has been our Accountant since 2008.
He has an accounting degree
and a background working in credit unions, financial
institutions, and manufacturing.
The HRC is Bryan’s first
experience working in a non-profit.
He has lived in Mississippi for 14 years on a farm with horses and chickens.
Bryan has been married to
Donna, a
photographer, for 25 years and has 3 daughters (two are
married and one 14-year-old).
He is also very happy to
have a 3-year-old granddaughter!
Bryan
enjoys many sports, such as basketball, tennis,
softball, and bowling.
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 Lisa
Campbell, a Housing Counselor,
has her NCHEC Certification in Housing Counseling and
Pre-Purchase Homeownership Education.
She majored in Accounting
and was an office manager for 8 years prior to coming to
the HRC.
She enjoys playing the
electric bass, coaching softball, and watching her
daughter play softball and her son play soccer.
If you are looking for
Lisa, you are sure to find her in one of three places:
the HRC, home, or on a ball field.
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 Brent
Woodfill is a certified Housing Counselor and
Foreclosure Specialist.
He came to the HRC after
working in Postal Management for 31 years.
He is married to Melinda.
His 33-year-old son has a
doctorate in Archaeology and is researching the Mayan
culture in Guatemala.
His 30-year-old daughter is
an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher in
Minnesota.
Brent’s youngest son is 17
years old.
Brent enjoys riding his
Harley Davidson Motorcycle and teaching AARP Safe Driver
classes and Red Cross Disaster and Mass Care classes.
 Jane
Stock is our Construction Estimator.
She excelled in
Construction Estimator Certification and holds the
record for the highest test score in the history of the
class!
Before coming to the HRC,
she worked for 84
Lumber for about 10 years and was a project
coordinator for 2 years.
Jane has been married for 4
years and has a 16 year old son and a step-daughter.
A fun fact about Jane is
that she once learned ballroom dancing and belly
dancing.
Jane is always upbeat and
positive and she lives by the motto “you burn more
calories smiling and laughing than by grouching.”
 Melanie
Humphries is the smiling face that greets you at our
Front Desk since April 2010.
Before coming to the HRC,
she sold State Farm Insurance and worked on the
Homeowner’s Grant for the Mississippi Development
Authority (MDA) after Hurricane Katrina.
Melanie was born and raised
in Bay Saint Louis and Waveland and has a huge family in
the area.
She says that family is her
hobby and enjoys weekend get-togethers with them.
Melanie loves being a mom
to her 3-year-old daughter, 17-year-old daughter, and
18-year-old son who is a student at University of
Southern Mississippi.
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Hancock County Housing Resource Center
provides comprehensive coordination for the planning and
implementation of county and municipal housing activities and
services.
Vision
We envision a healthy, sustainable Hancock
County with diverse housing options for a vibrant economy.
Before the storm, Hancock County was a
thriving and growing community. The Spring before the storm, the
Wall Street Journal wrote an article on Bay Saint Louis,
attracting new residents, investors, and tourists to the County.
Then on August 29, 2005, everything changed.
The eye of the Hurricane Katrina went straight up the
Pearl River, with the forceful right eyewall impacting the
Bay-Waveland area, and making Hancock County ground zero. The
devastation was widespread, wiping out entire neighborhoods,
leaving nothing but a slab and the infamous stairways going to
nowhere.
Basic human needs were the first priority.
Food, Water, Shelter. Thank God for the camps with volunteers
offering supplies and the food buffets and the tents. Next
problem? How to
organize clean-up efforts with volunteer labor.
In late 2005, the Long-term Recovery
Committee was formed to help organize the rebuilding process.
The first priority was to assist the most vulnerable
population.
Hurricane Recovery through GCCF, Salvation
Army, Red Cross, and Lutheran Episcopal Services of Mississippi
began funding projects for rebuilding. The Long-Term Committee
organized meetings to collaborate with these organizations and
others, shared information and resources, reviewed client cases,
and rebuilt homes.
If nothing else, Katrina showed us all that
humanity does prevail. Everyone from all walks of life now had
the same story, the same tragedy, and it seemed as if everyone
banded together with a firm resolve to build the community back.
Volunteers came from across the country to help. Some came for a
week to set rafters and lay shingles. Others stayed for months,
even years. Church organizations, non-profit services, local and
regional, and national government agencies all came together and
collaborated on efforts to recover housing and infrastructure.
Over the last five years, the Hancock Housing
Resource Center, the Hancock County Long-term Recovery Committee
and partner organizations successfully completed over 500
rehabilitation and rebuilding projects. In 2008, the Hancock
Resource Center spun off into its own non-profit and expanded
its focus to serve the housing needs of Hancock County today
which include: homeownership counseling and education, design
consulting, budget counseling, foreclosure intervention, credit
counseling, rental assistance, and homelessness prevention.
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