 HOPE VI
"The social services offered may be as important as the new construction."
By ROGER G. SMITH
CITY HALL REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The transformation of a North Side neighborhood is just starting to show, a year into a project that will make it happen.
Construction is about half done on a 40-unit senior citizen apartment building.
The complex stands where some of the Westlake Terrace public housing project used to be.
Next door, a storm-water retention pond is built at the edge of the neighborhood.
Nearly 300 Westlake Terrace units, demolished a few years ago, used to sit between Griffith and Wirt streets.
Now, Parmelee Avenue has been connected to Wirt, the main street running through the neighborhood. Work is under way to connect Park Avenue with Wirt. Connecting Harlem Avenue to Wirt starts this spring.
It's been a year since the Youngstown Metropolitan Housing Authority won a nearly $20 million, five-year federal grant for the neighborhood overhaul, titled Hope VI.
The grant will go a long way to remaking the neighborhood, called Arlington Heights.
The spot is bounded by U.S. Route 422, the Madison Avenue Freeway, St. Elizabeth Health Center and Oxford Avenue.
What it will include
The project eventually will include about 200 subsidized and market-rate homes, a recreation center, park space and a youth golf center.
The past year has been spent refining final plans for Hope VI, starting some construction and setting up social services that are part of the program.
"We've been laying a lot of groundwork," said Megan Shutes, Hope VI coordinator.
Maybe as important as the new construction are the accompanying social services, said Herman Hill, coordinator of community and supportive services for Hope VI.
YMHA has a contract with a case management agency that will work with people who used to live in the area and were displaced by Westlake demolition. Those residents can tap a variety of services arranged through Hope VI, from education and job training to financial counseling and homeownership training.
The goal is to help them become self-sufficient and eligible to rent or own a home in the new neighborhood. Case managers will start evaluating people in April.
More change ahead
More physical change is scheduled to start late this year.
Construction will start in November on 36 single-family homes on new sections of Parmelee, Harlem and Park.
Thirty of the homes are part of Hope VI. A nonprofit agency, CHOICE Homes, is building the other six. Likewise, CHOICE is building and will operate the senior citizen apartment complex even though it sits within the Hope VI borders.
The city has donated what now is Evans Field, which will be the site of more housing.
Work this year won't affect the field, said Carmelita Douglas, YMHA program planning and monitoring director.
When construction does move onto Evans Field, YMHA will make recreational space available nearby at the former Chase Park, she said. The city swapped Evans Field for the Chase Park space.
rgsmith@vindy.com |
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