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Agency chief: Funding will fall short
By DAVID SKOLNICK
YOUNGSTOWN
A Youngstown official expressed disappointment for how the city fared in the third round of federal funding to help stabilize struggling neighborhoods.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced Wednesday that Youngstown would receive $1,096,328 in the third round of its Neighborhood Stabilization Program.
“I don’t think it’s enough to accomplish what we need to accomplish, but without a doubt, we’ll make the best of it,” said Bill D’Avignon, the city’s community- development agency director, when told Wednesday by The Vindicator about the city’s allocation.
D’Avignon expressed similar disappointment after announcements were made about the first two rounds of federal funding for neighborhoods.
Besides again questioning the formula used by HUD, D’Avignon said only 10 percent of the money the city will receive can be used for housing demolition. The demolition of dilapidated and abandoned houses is what the city needs the most to stabilize its neighborhoods, D’Avignon said.
“We also want the redevelopment of vacant properties for green space. We’re unclear if we’re allowed to do that with NSP money in this round,” he added.
HUD will issue specific guidelines as to how the money from NSP’s third round can be used in the next few weeks.
Youngstown officials will lobby HUD, urging the agency to let the city use more than 10 percent of this allocation for demolition, Mayor Jay Williams said.
“We can make a compelling case to show that using money for demolition helps our neighborhoods,” he said. “If there’s an interpretation that will allow us to use the money for demolition, we’ll use it that way. We’ll comply with HUD’s rules.”
The funds awarded in the third round, just like the first round, were formula-based, meaning Youngstown, as one of Ohio’s larger cities, was guaranteed money, D’Avignon said.
Also, Trumbull County will receive $1,143,889, HUD announced.
According to HUD, the agency weighed several factors in determining how much would be distributed based on foreclosures, unemployment, how many houses were financed by subprime lenders and home- owners who are delinquent with paying mortgages.
Yet cities with lower unemployment and foreclosure rates such as Springfield, Lorain and Canton received more money from HUD in this round of funding, as they did in the first round.
Youngstown received $2.7 million in the first round of NSP announced in October 2008.
The city also ended up receiving about $1.25 million of the $1.9 million Mahoning County received in the first round. The county received that money as part of the state’s $116 million allocation from HUD.
Youngstown received such a large amount of the county’s funding because most of the other communities in the county couldn’t comply with HUD rules on how, where and when to spend the grant money.
The city demolished about 600 houses — using about half of its $2.7 million and all of the money it received from the county, D’Avignon said.
The city has about 600 residential houses that need to be demolished, D’Avignon said.
Youngstown spearheaded a failed nine Mahoning Valley community effort to obtain $32.4 million in a competitive second round of NSP funding. The rejection happened this past January with HUD evaluations calling the proposal incomplete, unclear and flawed.
Mercedes Marquez, HUD’s assistant secretary, will join Williams and U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Niles, D-17th, today at a house at 915 Lanterman Ave. to tout the new allocation for Youngstown and to show the success of the first round.
The Lanterman Avenue house was rehabilitated using money from the first round, said Shantae Goodloe, a HUD spokeswoman. While Marquez is in Youngstown, Williams said he’ll talk to her about “how constructive it is to have the ability to use the money to demolish houses and turn it into green space.”