The Department of Housing and Urban Development has awarded $4.4 million in
This investment is providing “critically needed funding to support locally driven economic development,” stated HUD secretary Shaun Donovan, adding that local leaders will be able to use the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative to start planning and to engage their communities into the next generation neighborhood revitalization movement.
HUD’s Choice Neighborhoods Initiative promotes efforts to transform “distressed areas of concentrated poverty” into sustainable mixed-income neighborhoods by linking housing improvements with other necessary neighborhood services that attract residents, including schools, public transit and employment opportunities.
The program’s housing goals include transforming distressed public and assisted housing into energy efficient, mixed-income housing “that is physically and financially viable over the long term.”
The grantees will use the funding to work with local stakeholders, including residents, community members, businesses, institutions and local government officials to create a comprehensive transformation plan, or road map, to a “choice neighborhood.”
Congress approved the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative, a signature program that offers implementation grants and planning grants, with the passage of HUD’s FY2010 budget to promote and offer federal support to local efforts to turn around 20 of the highest poverty urban, rural and tribal communities across the country. So far HUD has awarded $16.9 million.
Up to $500,000 in 2013 Choice Neighborhood Planning grants were given to local entities in California, Denver, Connecticut, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Missouri.
