PR: HUD AWARDS $153 MILLION TO REVITALIZE SEVERELY DISTRESSED PUBLIC HOUSING IN EIGHT COMMUNITIES

The following is a press release:

—-

WASHINGTON – U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan today awarded $152.7 million to help eight cities across the country transform severely distressed public housing developments into mixed-income communities.

Housing authorities in the following cities developed highly successful revitalization plans to transform the physical condition of a public housing community and make a positive impact on the lives of their residents: Boston, Massachusetts; Denver, Colorado; Louisville, Kentucky; Patterson, New Jersey; St. Louis, Missouri; Taunton, Massachusetts; Phoenix, Arizona; and Portland, Oregon.

“No one can dispute the exceptional track record of HOPE VI to improve housing conditions for hundreds of communities and most importantly, thousands of families,” said Donovan. “As we move toward the next generation of neighborhood revitalization – one that links housing, education, transportation, healthcare, and other support services – we will always remember it all began with HOPE VI.”

The following housing authorities are being awarded grants through HUD’s HOPE VI Revitalization Program:

• Boston Housing Authority will receive $22 million to revitalize the Old Colony public housing development;
• Housing Authority of the City and County of Denver will receive $22 million to revitalize the South Lincoln public housing development;
• Louisville Metropolitan Housing Authority will receive $22 million to revitalize the Sheppard Square public housing development;
• Housing Authority of the City of Patterson (NJ) will receive $18.4 million to revitalize the Alexander Hamilton public housing development;
• St. Louis Housing Authority will receive $7,829,750 to revitalize the Arthur Blumeyer public housing development;
• Taunton Housing Authority will receive $22 million to revitalize the Fairfax Gardens public housing development;
• City of Phoenix Housing Authority will receive $20 million from FY 2011 funds to revitalize the Frank Luke Addition public housing development; and
• Housing Forward (Portland Housing Authority) will receive $18.5 million from FY 2011 funds to revitalize the Hillsdale Terrace public housing development.

The eight housing authorities announced today were selected among 36 public housing authorities that applied forFY 2010 HOPE VI Revitalization funding.  Six of the grantees will be funded from FY 2010 HOPE VI appropriations; two awards will come from FY 2011 funding. Later this year, HUD will conduct a competition to award $65 million in FY2011 funding to implement the Department’s new Choice Neighborhoods Program.HUD awarded high marks to applicants who plan to extend neighborhood transformation efforts beyond public housing linking housing interventions with early childhood education programs. The Obama Administration is challenging communities to build upon the HOPE VI lessons to employ a comprehensive approach to community transformation.  Choice Neighborhoods aims to transform neighborhoods of poverty into viable mixed-income neighborhoods with access to economic opportunities by revitalizing severely distressed public and assisted housing and then linking these neighborhoods to well-functioning services, effective schools, public transportation and jobs.

Housing authorities are competitively selected for HOPE VI grants based on many factors including the effectiveness and project readiness of their revitalization plans.  HUD gives recipients the flexibility to develop revitalization plans that meet their local needs.  Among other criteria, grantees are selected based on the capacity of their  housing authority and its development team to administer and manage completion of the revitalization effort; the severity of physical distress of the development; the ability of the housing authority to supplement the HOPE VI grant with funding from other sources, private, state or local government; the ability to provide supportive services to displaced residents; and the proposed green development and energy efficiency strategies.

Since 1993, HUD has awarded 260 HOPE VI Revitalization grants to 133 housing authorities– totaling nearly $ 6.3 billion. HUD began awarding HOPE VI grants following a 1992 report by the National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing that found approximately 86,000 public housing units in the U.S. needed revitalization.  HOPE VI Revitalization grants are used for an array of activities, including: demolition of severely distressed public housing; acquisition of sites for off-site construction; capital costs of major rehabilitation; new construction and other physical improvements; costs for mobility counseling and relocation; and community and supportive service programs for residents, including those relocated as a result of revitalization efforts.

Read a summary of the HOPE VI grants awarded today. #

Principal Cities vs. Edge Cities

As I was watching CBS Sunday Morning yesterday I was thinking about what to write for today, then I saw the segment Cities on the rise like never before and liked how it started:

Connie Curran remembers her years in the suburbs as “dull.” She told [Seth] Doane she started thinking about moving to the city a month after she moved into the ‘burbs.

“I bought this house – it had a white picket fence,” Curran said. “My sister saw it and she said, ‘You’re on Wisteria Lane!’ It was a great house and it was very peaceful. It was very homogeneous – and it was very boring.”

So last year, at age 61, this nurse-turned-healthcare entrepreneur – who found a new lease on life after beating stage-four cancer – settled into a spectacular home in San Francisco.

“When I saw that view I thought, ‘Now this is city, and this is a neighborhood. I’m living life. This is life. This is the luxury of middle age.”

She defined the luxury of middle-age as the ability “to move to the city and to enjoy the richness and vastness of the things that are here. I hang around 24th Street and usually pick up some flowers, pick up some fruit.”

Curran says walking everywhere keeps her fit. (full story)

By the end of the story, however, I grabbed my iPad and fired off an angry email to CBS Sunday Morning. What happened?  They talked about the fastest growing city in the U.S., Olive Branch MS. Olive Branch is technically a city, but it functions as an auto-centric suburb of Memphis TN. The fastest growing city in Missouri? Wentzville:

Wentzville is the fastest growing city in Missouri from 2000 to 2008, according to recently released data from the U. S. Census Bureau. Wentzville increased in population by over 200 percent, adding more than 16,000 residents to the city since the 2000 Census.

True, as a percentage increase it is higher but they remain the dull homogenous non-place edge cities many are fleeing for principal cities and first & second tier suburbs. St. Luislost population in the last census count but I suspect the changes are more dramatic. Areas like downtown, Lafayette Square to the south, and Old North to the north, saw population gains.  The biggest losses came from north St. Louis.

In the 1940s St. Louis’ planners didn’t see the middle class trend to the suburbs. The reverse is happening now.  Middle class couples with school age children are still locating in new homes in edge cities but once the youngest starts college the parents seek out interesting and walkable areas.  Those who can afford private schools aren’t waiting, they are living where they want while junior is still in school.

So the story started off great but ended with a family in an edge city as an example of “cities on the rise.”

– Steve Patterson

Poll: Will you shop at the downtown Macy’s more than you used to?

A few days ago the downtown Macy’s store in the Railway Exchange building had a reopening event:

The store is shrinking to three floors from seven at the Railway Exchange but will carry more clothing for office workers and more housewares targeted at residents of downtown lofts and apartments. Gone are the store’s furniture department and two restaurants. All 134 store employees remain. (Source)

The store was packed on Thursday! Looking around the housewares department it is clear a car-free downtown resident could get everything needed to stock a loft kitchen, including a stock pot. I’m more likely to buy clothing at a thrift store than a department store so I can’t speak to the selection of men’s clothing.

My poll question this week asks “Will you shop at the downtown Macy’s more than you used to?” I hopefully have covered all the possible answers but if not supply your own.  The poll is in the upper right of the blog.

– Steve Patterson

What A Difference A Year Makes

A year ago today people gathered at Washington Ave at 7th Street to witness the demolition of the massive pedestrian bridge betweem the shuttered St. Louis Centre mall and the former Dillard’s store. Here is my video from the event, the first 8:45 are various speakers:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvsl-eGi9f8

Here was the bridge before the demo crews began:

The sidewalks on both sides of Washington Ave were dark and depressing.

For a year now pedestrians and motorists have enjoyed the openness.

The former Dillard’s Store will soon open as the Laurel Apartments.  The increase in foot traffic I’ve observed in the last year has been remarkable.

– Steve Patterson

Backed By Nine St. Louis Businessmen Charles Lindbergh Began Historic Flight 84 Years Ago Today

Eighty-four years ago history was made, thanks in part to financial help from St. Louis:

At 7:52 A.M., May 20, 1927 Charles Lindbergh gunned the engine of the “Spirit of St Louis” and aimed her down the dirt runway of Roosevelt Field, Long Island. Heavily laden with fuel, the plane bounced down the muddy field, gradually became airborne and barely cleared the telephone wires at the field’s edge. The crowd of 500 thought they had witnessed a miracle. Thirty-three and one half-hours and 3,500 miles later he landed in Paris, the first to fly the Atlantic alone.

Working as a mail pilot a year earlier he heard of the $25,000 prize for the first flight between New York and Paris. Backed by a group of St. Louis businessmen, Lindbergh supervised the building of his special plane and set out after the prize. Other teams were attempting the feat – some had met disaster. Lindbergh equipped himself with four sandwiches, two canteens of water and 451 gallons of gas. Midway through the flight “sleet began to cling to the plane. That worried me a great deal and I debated whether I should keep on or go back. I decided I must not think any more about going back.” (Source)

Air travel has changed considerably since Lindbergh’s flight to Paris. Today the flight only takes eight and a half hours, still too long on a plane for me.  The Concorde took just under 3.5 hours.

Twenty years after Lindbergh’s flight planner Harland Bartholomew wrote in St. Louis’ 1947 Comprehensive Plan:

It is reasonable to assume that the developments in air transportation during the next few decades will parallel that of automobile transportation, which really started about three decades ago. St. Louis must be prepared to accept and make the most of conditions that will arise. Provision of the several types of airfields required must be on a metropolitan basis. The recently prepared Metropolitan Airport Plan proposes thirty-five airfields.

Three were to be located within the city limits. Crazy times.

– Steve Patterson