HUD awards first Choice Neighborhoods planning grants
Seventeen communities will be the first recipients of Choice Neighborhoods Initiative (CN) planning grants, US Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan announced March 18. These communities will share a total of $4 million while six other cities are selected as finalists to compete for approximately $61 million in Choice Neighborhood Implementation Grants (see attached lists).
The planning grant recipients were: Buffalo, NY; Tulsa, OK; Kansas City, MO; Albany, GA; Atlanta, GA; Norwalk, CT; Salisbury, NC; Wilmington, NC; Jackson, TN; Jersey City, NJ; Baltimore, MD; Memphis, TN; Philadelphia, PA; Norfolk, VA; Shreveport, LA; Providence, RI; and San Antonio, TX. Boston, MA; New Orleans, LA; Tampa, FL; Seattle, WA; Chicago, IL; and San Francisco, CA will compete for the larger pool of implementation money.
The new Choice Neighborhoods Initiative will promote "a comprehensive approach to transforming distressed areas of concentrated poverty into viable and sustainable mixed-income neighborhoods," HUD says. Building on the successes of HUD’s HOPE VI Program, Choice Neighborhoods will link housing improvements with a wider variety of public services including schools, public transit, and employment opportunities, explains HUD.
“Today, we turn a new page in the way we tackle intergenerational poverty,” said Donovan, in a White House announcement with US Education Secretary Arne Duncan. “President Obama has said that there is no greater economic policy than one that invests in our children’s future and helps America out-educate the world. But that's not possible if we leave a whole generation of children behind in our poorest neighborhoods. The Choice Neighborhoods Initiative expands on the bipartisan success of the HOPE VI program by recognizing that we must link affordable housing with a mix of incomes and uses with quality education, public transportation, good jobs and safe streets.”
The Choice Neighborhoods Initiative is a centerpiece of the Obama Administration’s interagency Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative — a collaboration between the Departments of Housing and Urban Development, Education, Justice, Treasury and Health and Human Services to support the ability of local leaders from the public and private sectors and attract the private investment needed to transform distressed neighborhoods into sustainable, mixed-income neighborhoods with the affordable housing, safe streets, and good schools every family needs.
HUD received 119 submissions for CN Planning Grants and 42 submissions from communities seeking CN Implementation Grants. Successful Planning Grant applicants demonstrated their intent to transform neighborhoods by revitalizing severely distressed public and/or assisted housing while
leveraging investments to create high-quality public schools, outstanding education and early learning programs, public assets, public transportation, and improved access to jobs and well-functioning services. HUD focused on directing resources to address three core goals — housing, people, and neighborhoods.
The 17 communities awarded CN planning grants will use the funding to create a comprehensive plan to transform distressed public and/or assisted housing, HUD explained.
The six finalists for CN Implementation Grants have already undertaken the comprehensive local planning process and are ready to redevelop their target neighborhoods. HUD will publish a second Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) shortly to give these finalists the opportunity to assemble and submit a more detailed application for the available funding. HUD will award these implementation grants by the end of Septembe.
Congress approved the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative with the passage of HUD’s FY 2010 budget, allowing HUD to use $65 million to provide competitive grants to assist in the transformation, rehabilitation, and preservation of public housing and privately owned HUD-assisted housing. CN builds on the successes and lessons of HUD’s HOPE VI program and widened the traditional pool of eligible applicants by allowing, in addition to public housing authorities, local governments, nonprofit organizations and for-profit developers (who apply jointly with a public entity) to apply.
