U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson recently awarded nearly $5 million to 11 communities to help create plans to redevelop severely distressed HUD assisted housing and revitalize neighborhoods. Funded through HUD’s Choice Neighborhoods program, these grants will help local leaders craft comprehensive, homegrown plans to revitalize and transform these neighborhoods.
“Today’s grants will help to jump start the plans for immense positive change in 11 of our Nation’s often-neglected neighborhoods,” said HUD Secretary Ben Carson. “I look forward to seeing their plans come to fruition as we help to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty and set our neighbors back onto a path of self-sufficiency.”
“The Choice Neighborhoods Program goes far beyond providing new housing, it improves opportunities for residents and creates real and lasting change at the community level,” said Assistant Secretary Hunter Kurtz.
HUD is awarding Choice Neighborhoods Planning grants to the following communities:
Akron, Ohio
Area: Summit Lake
Amount: $450,000
Cincinnati, Ohio
Area: West End
Amount: $410,000
Houston, Texas
Area: Houston Third Ward
Amount: $450,000
Pittsburgh, Pa.
Area: Northside Choice – Allegheny Dwellings
Amount: $450,000
Fresno, Calif.
Area: California Avenue Neighborhood – Southwest Fresno
Amount: $450,000
Montgomery, Ala.
Area: Centennial Hill
Amount: $450,000
Easton, Pa.
Area: West Ward
Amount: $450,000
Fayetteville
Area: Murchison Road Corridor
Amount: $450,000
Toledo, Ohio
Area: McClinton Nunn-Junction
Amount: $450,000
Atlantic City, N.J.
Area: Stanley S. Holmes Village / Westside
Amount: $450,000
Atlanta, Ga.
Area: Bowen Choice Neighborhood
Amount: $450,000
HUD’s Choice Neighborhoods program promotes a comprehensive approach to transforming neighborhoods struggling to address the interconnected challenges of distressed housing, inadequate schools, poor health, high crime and historic disinvestment.
Choice Neighborhoods is focused on three core goals:
1. Housing: Replace distressed public and assisted housing with high-quality mixed-income housing that is well-managed and responsive to the needs of the surrounding neighborhood.
2. People: Improve outcomes of households living in the target housing related to employment and income, health and children’s education.
3. Neighborhood: Create the conditions necessary for public and private reinvestment in distressed neighborhoods to offer the kinds of amenities and assets, including safety, good schools and commercial activity, that are important to families’ choices about their community.
Through Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grants, local governments, housing authorities, residents, nonprofits, tribal authorities, private developers, school districts, police departments and other civic organizations create a common vision and develop effective strategies to revitalize their neighborhood. The resulting Transformation Plan lays the foundation for revitalizing the distressed public and/or assisted housing units, transforming the surrounding neighborhood, and promoting opportunities for families.
Source: HUD
