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The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) held a special announcement event this morning in Franklinton where it was revealed that Columbus will receive $23.2 Million this year to assist neighborhoods with vacant housing in their efforts for urban renewal.
Funding for the Neighborhood Stabilization Program comes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the federal program for economic stimulus. More information can be found online at Recovery.gov.
Hopefully that money will get where it needs to go and provide a shot in the arm to the very real renewal that needs to take place not only in Franklinton but other urban areas as well.
The amount is definitely not enough to help turn around all the neighborhoods that need it and there are several. Since that’s the case it should go to neighborhoods where there are already sizeable, active efforts to make improvements so that we can get the most out of this.
I agree with Columbusite. The funds wont make much difference spread throughout the City. OTE would be a suggestion insofar as the City of Columbus has already pledged a similar amount to clear and restore blight in this area.
The trashy neighborhoods really do sprawl endlessly in Columbus. I’d like to see the core fixed up nicer. Franklinton and OTE would be good places to start.
God lets clean these nasty neighborhoods up. Its a shame they have gone this long without coming back to life..at this pace now it will take decades to bring OTE and Franklinton up to normal standards.
no man. it won’t. and what are “normal standards”?
Where every other house is not empty with broken out windows…I understand u have great hopes for your neighborhood as do I.. but something bigger than whats been happening needs to start soon.
I’ve been disappointed so far by the news coverage I’ve seen about this announcement. Clearly the next step will be deciding how to whittle the $60M request down to $20M-worth of projects, but not one story addresses how that will be done. And the Dispatch keeps singling out the Wagenbrenner project in Weinland Park – which isn’t really typical of the projects in the application. Maybe I’m just feeling innappropriately defensive, but it seems like they’re choosing to feature the single project most likely to piss off people who don’t like to see tax money being devoted to purposes like this.
Press Release:
City of Columbus Receives $23.2 Million In HUD Neighborhood Stabilization Funds
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan today announced that the City of Columbus will receive $23.2 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding for the Neighborhood Stabilization Program 2.
Mayor Michael B. Coleman joined HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, Lt. Governor Lee Fisher, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown for the announcement this morning at Columbus’ Dodge Recreation Center. The funds will be used to establish financing mechanisms to redevelop foreclosed properties, demolish blighted structures, and purchase and rehabilitate homes and abandoned residential properties.
“The housing crisis has outpaced our ability to fully address it at the city level, which is why it is so important that we receive this federal aid to deal with this problem,†said Mayor Coleman. “My heartfelt thanks go to Secretary Donovan and President Obama for this much needed assistance to our community.â€Â
As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2008, the city of Columbus received an award of more than $22 million in the first round of NSP grant funds. The city is in the process of purchasing foreclosed and vacant properties that will be rehabilitated in several Columbus neighborhoods.
For more information about the Neighborhood Stabilization Program 2 or the award selections, please visit http://www.hud.gov.
It’s so wasteful that we’re tearing down homes that could be occupied while allowing eve more sprawling residential development to continue on our outskirts which is just going to likewise sit vacant. How long do we wait before having to scrounge up tens of millions to tear those down too?
I think that after the city chooses which neighborhoods get the money that they shouldmeet with the neighborhood associations/area commissions whose residents would probably be best in deciding where in the neighborhood that should be spent.
Obviously we should rehab the vacant and abandoned homes in our city neighborhoods as opposed to building new ones. We have plenty of housing, we just need to fix what we have (which would be more environmentally sound as well). Rehab not infill!
Different neighborhoods proposed different approaches in the grant application, but I know that in Weinland Park, at least, there’s a strong sentiment against any demolition.
The issue is that it’s hard to do renovation/rehab well and even harder to do it cheap. Since affordable housing is the prescribed end product, I think neighborhoods are going to need to watch carefully to be sure this money isn’t spent turning decrepit houses into permanently disfigured houses. There’s nothing worse than undoing a crappy rehab job, and sometimes it can’t be undone at all.
Our organization just got approved to spend Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Rehousing money (HPRP) from the Federal government. While it sounds amazing, its EXTREMELY hard to spend because its very specific. We basically had to revamp the requirements for our program (which was very successful with the United Way funding we had before) and it excluded a lot of people that need the help.
Im not looking a gift horse in the mouth but I hope that this new stimulus money goes to where it needs to and gives successful organizations the latitude to spend it that they need.
On a side note, we have a special program for Weinland Park, the funding came from Chase. Its actually very difficult to find clients in WP for some reason and our case worker is never at capacity. I used to live in OTE and would love to see it revamped in whatever way is more preferrable. However, there are TONS of areas that need it and even though it doesnt seem like its a lot of money to go around, every little bit helps when you have nothing.
What is the special Weinland Park program with funding from Chase?
‘urban renewal’ itself invokes the image something unattractive and in a state of decay. many places need an update. but what is vital is to make sure wherever the money is spent, it will attract more attention by way of more opportunities presented. this can be in many forms. 1 thing vital,….an identity that brings more participation. ultimately a “people” presence brings life to an area.
nice to have the money to take a stab at this problem but Columbus really needs to establish a Cleveland like land bank program to deal with decaying housing in the city. also, as much as it would be great to fix up all the vacant housing and fill it, there are a lot of houses around that are beyond saving, and just need to be leveled. the land can be re-sold for development as it becomes attractive to build in the dilapidated neighborhoods. in the mean time its better to have a vacant lot than a wreck of a home attracting homeless, drugs and prostitution
Good to see this issue is at least beginning to be addressed. I’m new to the GV area and am stunned at the number of abandoned homes/blocks surrounding this area. I’ve worked in the re-hab of older and historic homes and I’m very much for urban renewal, rehabilitation and sustainable building practices; the condition of the neglected homes in these blighted areas are simply beyond repair both structurally and economically. Salvage what can be from these homes, then smart re-development. We could have some nicely sized urban green space with the number of empty house in the area.
“nice to have the money to take a stab at this problem but Columbus really needs to establish a Cleveland like land bank program to deal with decaying housing in the city.”
There are efforts under way to do this, Cleveland has two land bank programs currently, on run by the city (which has existed since the late 70′s and the newer county program). The County program is being considered elsewhere in state, at this point I believe we are waiting for the state legislature to pass the enabling legislation to allow it in counties other than Cuyahoga (the original enabling leg only allowed it in Cuyahoga). So hopefully soon….
The best land bank model in the nation currently is the program being run by Gennessee County, MI (Flint). This is the model I wish we could replicate locally. It’s been very successful and was really groundbreaking when it was designed by their county auditor Dan Kildee earlier in the decade. http://www.thelandbank.org/
Also important to remember that the NSP program was designed originally to deal with foreclosure impacts, so in its use cities should really be targeting those neighborhoods most impacted by foreclosures and destabalized in recent years.
The funding is very helpful, but its frustrating that its not more nationally and locally. Considering ARRA was nearly 800 billion and out of that we only got 4 or so billion nationwide for the nsp program to deal with foreclosed properies. I would of rather seen more of the road money spent on home rehab, I think it could of produced jobs and made a big impact in urban neighborhoods.
Columbus does have a Land Bank, although I’m not sure how their model compares to the ones mentioned above:
http://development.columbus.gov/Bizdevelopment/BuyCityProperty/index.asp
Good comment about the city’s program, although a small program it has had some success from what I have heard (I believe Kyle Ezell actually worked on that program when he worked for the city).
A couple of major issues to make land bank programs work better.
First, a better integration into comprehensive planning, neighborhood planning etc. so the program strategically looks at parcels and doesn’t work piece meal (which is something the Flint program did well, although they were helped with philanthropic $’s).
Second, would be self financing for operating/staffing the land bank and doing long term planning, which is what MI first instituted with there 2003 land bank fast tract act, and the new Cuyahoga county program copies.
Finally, I think tying it into some type of foreclosure prevention, vacant property mitigation is key, trying to stop the influx of new vacant properties early, because once they enter into vacancy it is hard to bring them back to productive use (this is something MI does as well).
I hope someday soon, we can get a more robust program running like this in Columbus, and hopefully in the interim this NSP $ helps in the short term.