By Special to the Daily World
The City of Atlanta was recently awarded $250,000 to transform the Atlanta University Center Neighborhood into a new viable and sustainable mixed-income and mixed-use neighborhood (see project summary below). Mayor Kasim Reed joined U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Southeast Regional Administrator Ed Jennings Jr., as he announced that Atlanta is among 17 cities across the country to be awarded the first Planning Grant funding through the department’s new Choice Neighborhoods Initiative.
The communities that were awarded funding last Monday will share a total of $4 million in Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grants, while six other communities were selected as finalists to compete for approximately $61 million in Choice Neighborhood Implementation Grants.
“The City of Atlanta is grateful for the continued support of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development,” said Reed. “This grant will provide the necessary resources to improve the conditions of this neighborhood and help our residents out of poverty and onto a path of hope for the future. The proposed work will be transformational for the areas surrounding the Atlanta University Center and will serve as a model for other cities around the country.”
HUD’s new Choice Neighborhoods Initiative (CN) will promote a comprehensive approach to transforming distressed areas of concentrated poverty into viable and sustainable mixed-income, mixed-use neighborhoods.
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.
“Today, we turn a new page in the way we tackle intergenerational poverty,” said Jennings. “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. Atlanta and the Atlanta Housing Authority are to be congratulated for their efforts in that regard and for the recently announced Choice Neighborhood Planning Grant award.”
The Atlanta University Center neighborhood is home to the country’s largest concentration of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HCBUs). However, the
surrounding neighborhood is characterized by poverty, lack of jobs, troubled public schools, and poor quality housing, which included, until its demolition in 2009, the University Homes public housing development.
The Atlanta Housing Authority (AHA), the Choice Neighborhoods grantee and its partners have a vision of transforming the area into a “wonderful College Town area, which will rival the great college towns across the country.” The Choice Neighborhoods Transformation Plan, in conjunction with Morehouse School of Medicine’s Promise Neighborhoods planning effort, will provide the organizational structure to implement holistic community development in the Atlanta University Center neighborhood, including a master plan for redevelopment of the former University Homes public housing development and a “community service model” to create a stable foundation for cradle-to- college educational opportunities.
“It has long been evident that the only way to end the generational human failure caused by public housing was to replace the projects with healthy neighborhoods complete with successful schools and vibrant retail and recreational amenities,” said AHA CEO Renee Lewis Glover. “We’re proud to be part of the Obama Administration’s efforts. This planning grant is a step in revitalizing one of the most historic neighborhoods in Atlanta and the nation, the cradle of African-American higher education. The Atlanta University Center, as a result of this work, soon will be surrounded with a model community.”
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.
The six finalists for CN Implementation Grants have already undertaken the comprehensive local planning process and are ready to move forward with their Transformation Plan 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 approximately $61 million in available funding. HUD will award these grants by the end of September.
Congress approved the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative with the passage of HUD’s FY 2010 budget, allowing HUD to use $65 million in funding to provide competitive grants to assist in the transformation, rehabilitation and preservation of public housing and privately owned HUD-assisted housing.
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