The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has awarded grants to six communities across the nation to aid neighborhood revitalization and the redevelopment of distressed public housing.
Flint, Mich.; Gary, Ind.; Louisville, Ky.; Mobile, Ala.; North Las Vegas, Nev.; and St. Louis have received $3.2 million in Choice Neighborhood Planning Grants, which will help the grantees create comprehensive, locally driven plans to transform neighborhoods.
“These Choice Neighborhood grants will spark the creation of community plans for progress,” says HUD Secretary Julián Castro, who made the announcement on Friday in Louisville. “We look forward to working with local leaders to breathe new life into struggling neighborhoods, transforming them into places where residents can flourish and dreams can come true.”
The city of Flint and the Flint Housing Commission received a $500,000 grant to address the challenges facing the Atherton East public housing development in the South Saginaw Corridor.
The city of Gary, along with the Legacy Foundation and the Gary Economic Development Corp., received a $500,000 grant to focus on the University Park East neighborhood, which has experienced higher rates of vacancy, poverty, crime, and disinvestment. It also will allow the opportunity to plan for the redevelopment of part of Gary Housing Authority’s scattered-site public housing portfolio.
The Louisville Metro Housing Authority received a $425,000 grant to target the Russell neighborhood, which suffers from high poverty rates and a lack of employment opportunities, and the 768-unit Beecher Terrace, a barrack-style, family public housing site.
The Mobile Housing Board received two grants totaling $832,500. The first grant will be used to create a transformation plan that will revitalize the Three Mile Trace neighborhood, and the second will lead an inclusive planning process for the 70-year-old Thomas James Place, a distressed, 796-unit public housing development that is known to locals as Birdville.
The city of North Las Vegas and the Southern Nevada Regional Housing Authority will use its $485,000 grant to build upon community-driven interventions in the North Las Vegas Urban Core neighborhood, which includes the 120-unit Rose Gardens public housing development.
Urban Strategies, Inc., received a $500,000 grant to lead the process to create a transformation plan for the Near North Side neighborhood of St. Louis, which includes O’Fallon Place, two project-based Sec. 8 housing complexes. Urban Strategies will work with the city, McCormack Baron Salazar, St. Louis Public Schools, Flance Early Learning Center, as well as 45 other local partners.
Choice Neighborhoods succeeds the HOPE VI program, placing a new emphasis on linking housing improvements with schools, transportation, and other services.
