JACKSONVILLE — The residents living on the west side of Jacksonville are putting on their working boots and beautifying their area of town.

The residents plan to bring violence and gang awareness to the community by starting a neighborhood watch committee within the next month.

Whitney Carter said her great grandfather built a majority of the houses on the west side of town back in the 1930s. After several years of traveling and building a career, Carter said she and her family moved back to the roots of her existence.

“I'm not interested in beautifying Jacksonville just because my family worked hard building these houses and know what the town used to look like, I'm interested in making the west side of Jacksonville beautiful for the youth,” she said.

Carter said everybody and their children deserve nice place to live in.

“If they are happy where they live, then they won't join gangs and will do well in school,” she said.  “And when they graduate high school, there's a better chance they will go to college.”

Carter said if the city is interested in economic development, the residents have to work together to making Jacksonville presentable to prospective clients.

“Me and my husband have bought five homes that were just rundown in our neighborhood and renovated them within two years,” she said. “We have since rented a home to students from Lon Morris College. Now if we have institutions interested in buying the school, we need to clean up our neighborhood.”

Carter said she and other residents have not only kept up with their own yards, they have done their best to keep the city informed on possible ordinance violations.

Jody Watson, building official with code enforcement, said the city has two code enforcement officers who patrol areas.

“The city has to be careful with means and methods of condemning a home,” he said. “If that homeowner has a building permit, before we can condemn a home, we have to wait for that building permit to expire.”

Watson said under Texas law, the city has to honor a homeowners request when a building request is on file. Whether if it looks appeasing or not to others, the city has to acknowledge the value of each home.

“There's two sides to every story and we walk a tight rope when it comes to honoring the law and people's right to property,” he said.

Detective Javier Guerra with the Jacksonville Police Department has been working with Carter to help bring awareness to the neighborhood.

“We'e letting people know you do have a choice in lifestyle,” he said. “You have to decide am I going to be a victim or I'm not going to take it.”

Carter said she hopes residents will join her in walking the streets of the neighborhood.

“Our goal is the children, to teach them they live in a beautiful side of town,” she said. “But we're not going to stop here, we're going to take it one street at a time.”