People living in a Rowan County town said that high crime rates and a dismal quality of life have been the perception for years.

ALSO READ: East Spencer assistant fire chief accused of using town credit card to embezzle over $1,000

A revitalized East Spencer is on the horizon after 10 years of no new homes being built or sold inside the town limits.

Longtime East Spencer resident Reginald Weeks Sr. has admired his piece of the American dream.

“I been here about 50 years,” Weeks said.

Weeks said home is his pride and joy in the small town that’s located northeast of a larger city, Salisbury.

“I don’t have anyone on the side of me and it’s like privacy,” he told Channel 9.

He stayed in the historically Black town despite economic struggles that left it depressed in many ways.

“Things are really making improvements and it really goes into the hard work of the mayor and council,” Weeks said.

However, many say that home builders also deserve some recognition.

The builders are now helping to give East Spencer a new lease of life.

“It’s a community that is deserving of new homes,” said John Lambert, the chief operations officer for Prespro Homes and Neighborhoods. “It hadn’t had a home bought or sold when we got here in the last 10 years.”

He said the company took a chance on East Spencer about a year ago.

“People in so many ways tried to warn me to stay out of this area and Rowan County, in general,” Lambert said.

Nevertheless, Lambert encouraged his company to ignore the naysayers.

Lambert said that within the past year, “We have 20 (homes) in some stage of production and many are nearing completion like this one,” Lambert said. “These homes start in the low 200,000′s. Therefore, working-class folks, they can afford it and not have to pay rent.”

Lambert’s company is building new homes that come with standard upgrades.

“(It) comes with stainless steel appliances and polished black-granite countertops,” he said.

ALSO READ: Woman arrested after home set on fire, dog stolen in Rowan County

Lambert said his company is not interested in selling the homes to investment firms.

“We already have multiple homes under contract,” he explained. “We decided not to sell them to anyone but residents or people that are from this area.”

Officials said creating an image of a wealthy town hasn’t been associated with East Spencer.

“First thing, they would think is crime,” said East Spencer Mayor Barbara Mallett. “Then they would talk about disunity and that there was no unification in the (town) board.”

Mallet has been East Spencer’s mayor for 12 years. She said that changing perceptions took about eight years of hard work.

“We had to build from the ground up,” she said. “We had to change the mindset and then had to change the image of this town. Our infrastructure, our water and sewer, and our roads and making way for new homes by removing old and dilapidated properties.”

She said she is proud to say East Spencer seems to have turned a corner and people are noticing.

“Now, we have the lowest crime rate in the county. Once you start, everything starts to fall into place,” Mallett said.

It’s a full-circle moment Weeks is proud to say he witnessed.

ALSO READ: Deputies: Two men arrested for meth trafficking following high-speed chase in Rowan County

“I found out that where there’s unity, there’s strength, and the more we work together and they are working together, the more the improvements are being made,” Weeks said.

Mallett said new, single-family homes aren’t the only part of East Spencer’s transformation. They are also getting bites for new commercial business. The town also just paid off a fire truck, for $350,000.

(Watch below: East Spencer residents dealing with inconsistencies at the local post office)

When a story begins with a pastor, an armed robbery in the pulpit and $1 million worth of ice, it’s headed to bad places. So of course it wasn’t long before a little digging into the background of the Right Rev. Robbery Aintwright Bishop Lamor Whitehead of Brooklyn’s Leaders of Tomorrow International Churches turned up a lawsuit claiming that $90,000 in retirement money from a member of his flock ended up in Whitehead’s personal collection plate instead.

Michele Gile reports from Newport Beach where a judge sentenced Grace Elizabeth Coleman, 23, to 21 years to life in prison for killing a Santa Ana couple after a drunk-driving collision in Newport Beach.

A climber has given a chilling account of how a British military officer fell to his death from the summit of a mountain in the Himalayas.

“The inside of the refrigerator was covered in mold and (held) no edible food,” police said.

Nicholas Sandmann appeared in a viral video with a Native American elder in 2019.

Jurors watched the deposition of former Infowars editor Rob Jacobson during Alex Jones' Sandy Hook defamation trial.

“They got on the roof and the entire underneath washed out with them and the children. They managed to get to a tree and ... held the children a few hours before a big tide came and wash them all away at the same time.”

The dusty truck bounced along the narrow streets of Jomulquillo, the village in the Mexican state of Zacatecas where my father was born.

At least 20 Asian immigrant families in Brooklyn, New York, are facing eviction after falling victim to a ​​$4 million housing fraud from their building’s real estate developer. Brooklyn real estate developer Xihui “Steven” Wu falsely claimed he had the right to sell individual apartment units to the families. The families entrusted Wu in the individual condo selling of his 25-unit residential building on 345 Ovington Avenue.

Festive Miami drag restaurant R House is caught in the crossfire. The popular Wynwood destination, where guests slug mimosas while watching elaborately dressed entertainers in sky-high heels gallivant about the space, is the target of a state complaint filed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration. The state alleges that the drag shows expose minors to sexually explicit conduct and could embolden pedophiles.

This seems like some counter-intuitive strategy and it absolutely works just like you’d expect…

Logan Sweet, of Hamilton, had been missing since July 24 after he attended a concert in Grand Rapids.

Convicted Dan Markel murderer Katherine Magbanua faces upwards of 60 additional years in prison for her role in what investigators say was a contract killing of the acclaimed Florida State law professor.

Queen conch are found in the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, the Bahamas and Bermuda but commercial and recreational harvest is generally banned in U.S. waters.

Hendersonville Chick-fil-A faces online criticism after issuing a call on social media for volunteers to work the restaurant’s new drive-thru express.

After local lawyer Lori Murray posted a TikTok about CFD, four firefighters decided to pay her a visit.

Some workers described overdoses and cleaning up bodily fluids, while others said they never felt unsafe while working.

Prosecutors made sure a federal judge knew about Steve Bannon's press conferences outside court, arguing the Trump ally "himself generated" publicity.

The body of Christe Chen, a newlywed Tennessee woman who was found dead inside the bathroom of her bungalow during her honeymoon, suffered such grievous injuries that it had to be cremated in Fiji. Chen’s family lawyer Ronald Gordon told Daily Mail that her family plans to take civil action against her husband Bradley Robert Dawson, 38, in case he is not found criminally responsible for the death of Chen, 36. Gordon also noted that Chen’s remains had to be cremated in Fiji due to her severe injuries, confirming that she suffered major blows to her body.

A Brooklyn couple who checked into a Marriott Hotel in Pennsylvania received an invoice with an anti-Asian slur. Jamie Chung, 37, and his girlfriend Tierney Oberhammer, 35, stayed the night at the Courtyard by Marriott on Concord Road in the city of York on June 13. Following their stay, they received an invoice through email with an anti-Asian racial slur typewritten on their bill.