With the City of Perry having had a tough year, one city official is looking for a turnaround in the housing market.

Through recovering from the shooting at the high school and the closure of the Tyson plant, which laid off more than 1,300 employees, Perry Housing Manager Molly Milosevich mentions that she grew up in a small town, and was working in Grimes at the time as an Assistant Planner. However, she saw what Perry was going through and thought that was a motivating factor in her decision to become the new housing manager back in July.

“Grimes is very fast-growing, it’s very safe, and here’s Perry that’s kind of struggling through recent times this past year, but I wanted a challenge, and I kind of did miss that more small-town feel and I think Perry is so interesting in that it is small town but it is so close to the metro, so it has so much opportunity, and I just wanted to like explore that.”

Milosevich admits that there is a rise of houses becoming available with some people moving out of the area to find occupation somewhere else. She is optimistic that with the City of Perry’s strategic plan that’s being worked on, the community will be able to bounce back from this massive hit.