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City, county grants to help improve neighborhoods
January 29, 2009 at 11:42 am
By MAC CORDELL
Union County and the City of Marysville will each be receiving nearly a quarter of a million dollars to help blighted neighborhoods.
John Cleek, of Community Development Corporation of Ohio, informed the Union County Commissioners that as part of the federal Housing and Economic Recovery Plan of 2008’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program, both Union County and Marysville will receive $240,000 to help rehabilitate neighborhoods.
Cleek said the money is “coming down the pipe pretty quick.” He also said the money could double, depending on decisions made at the federal level.
Cleek said there are “very specific” qualifications the funded projects must meet, including, “the redevelopment of abandoned, vacant or foreclosed property.”
State and local governments can use neighborhood stabilization grants to acquire land and property; to demolish or rehabilitate abandoned properties; and/or to offer down payment and closing cost assistance to low- to moderate-income home buyers —household incomes not exceeding 120 percent of area median income. In addition, these grantees can create land banks to assemble, temporarily manage and dispose of vacant land for the purpose of stabilizing neighborhoods and encouraging re-use or redevelopment of urban property.
“To those areas trying to recover from the effects of foreclosure and declining property values, help is on the way,” U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Steve Preston said when he announced the $3.92 billion program in September. “Clearly, the intent is to put this money to work in communities with the highest need and to have a meaningful impact. Now the real work begins and HUD stands ready to support these states and communities as they work to stabilize their neighborhoods.”
The Ohio Department of Development has presented a plan to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for dispersing the funds. Ohio’s is the first accepted plan.
“So Ohio is moving along quite well,” said Cleek.
Ohio’s plan broke the state into regions. Union County and Marysville are both in a district with five other entities, including Logan County, Champaign County, Hardin County, Urbana and Bellefontaine. The seven entities in the region will receive about $1.8 million total.
Funds are to be targeted specifically for areas of the most need in each of the entities.
As of July 2008, Marysville had 197 houses in foreclosure and 131 houses that had been vacant for at least 90 days. With 35 houses in foreclosure and 13 vacant houses, Richwood is labeled as the area most in need of assistance inside the county, but outside of Marysville.
The county commissioners asked about the possibility of using these funds to rehabilitate the Richwood Civic Center.
“I can’t think of a single project that would have as much impact on as many people,” said commissioner Gary Lee.
Cleek said the project likely would not qualify as the center is not vacant. The commissioners said they were less worried about the look of a neighborhood and more worried about living conditions.
“I am worried about people living in substandard conditions,” said Lee.
He added, “there is going to be a tragedy there someday. We are on borrowed time right now.”
Cleek said he feels the most effective use of the money would be to “get rid of blighted properties.”
The commissioners questioned how effective they could be even cleaning up neighborhoods with $240,000.
“How is this supposed to make a dent in anything?” commissioner Tom McCarthy asked.
“It’s not,” Cleek said. “It’s not.”
“I don’t understand why the federal government does stuff like this,” McCarthy said. “It makes people feel good in Washington, that they are giving away X-million dollars, but it doesn’t mean anything.”
Cleek said the funding could be “doubled, or more” under the proposed federal economic stimulus package.
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