SHARON Officials, residents fear loss of programs without grant

Mercer County Housing Authority's resident services will be hurt by the closing of a federal drug-elimination grant program.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
SHARON, Pa. -- Sharon Ivey fears that the elimination of police foot patrols through her Mesabi Street neighborhood will allow crime to take to the streets again.
Wilhelmina Hawkins, a Volunteers In Service To America worker for the Mercer County Housing Authority who also lives on Mesabi Street, fears a cutback in her program will reduce volunteer services to children living in authority properties.
Cuts in police patrols as well as the VISTA program here are both likely because the housing authority is no longer able to secure federal drug-elimination grants.
L. DeWitt Boosel, authority executive director, said the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has eliminated that grant program but has said authorities would be getting some additional money in their annual capital fund allocations to continue some of the programs the grant program funded.
Boosel said he doesn't know yet how much that will be.
Loss of the grant program is unfortunate, he said.
"This was one of the best we've seen. It had a lot of flexibility to design programs to meet community needs," Boosel said.
Amount of grants
The authority got six grants totaling more than $1.1 million in just a six-year period.
The money has been channeled into residential services ranging from the creation of a Small Business Incubator in Farrell helping authority residents and others start their own small companies to police foot patrols in authority apartment complexes and even the development of community centers in those complexes.
Now, some of those programs may have to be scaled back and some may have to be eliminated, Boosel said.
The VISTA program is one of those likely to be reduced, he said, noting the authority has been putting up $18,000 a year from the drug-elimination grants as matching funds to get VISTA workers.
"The VISTA does a lot of good volunteer work with the children," said Hawkins, now in her third and final year with the program.
The VISTA workers raised funds to take children to events and activities they might never get to otherwise, she said. That includes trips to amusement parks, skating and other activities that "make a whole lot of difference in those kids' lives," she said.
Money diverted
Police foot patrols were already scaled back this year as the authority put $30,000 used for that purpose into a Weed & amp; Seed crime prevention and community development program along the Farrell-Sharon border.
Ivey, who started out working as a volunteer at the authority's Quinby Street Resource Center and now runs the library outreach program there, doesn't want to see those patrols end.
The visible police presence deterred a lot of crime, she said, recalling that she lived on Ravine Place in the Malleable Heights apartment complex when the patrols started and that was a high crime area.
"I used to joke with my sister that if I wanted to watch crime on TV, all I had to do was put an antenna on my window and open the curtain. It was that bad," Ivey said.
The police foot patrols stopped that, she said.
Ivey also fears the loss of funding will hurt the resource center operations at a time when the library outreach program is trying to expand.
It draws between 10 and 20 children now but is trying to expand its hours and attract more adults, she said.
Other programs
Boosel said the urban 4-H program run at Quinby Street, the Sharpsville Learning Center in the Sharpsville Gardens apartment complex, the Small Business Incubator and various resident activity training programs and services are also in jeopardy.
The authority is looking for replacement grant sources to cover some of those things but some could be reduced in scope or eliminated, he said.
The authority is starting a new five-year strategic plan and these issues will be addressed, Boosel said, adding, "We don't want to go back to no social and resident services."