Neighborhoods

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

On Tuesday, March 21, Farmers National Bank awarded YNDC with a $5,000 grant.

The grant will be used for YNDC’s housing programming. Many thanks to Farmers National Bank for their support!

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

In March 2017, the City of Youngstown granted $1,500,000 to the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation

, finalizing a partnership to catalyze the renovation and purchase of a larger volume of vacant homes, increasing homeownership as part of broader neighborhood revitalization strategies in neighborhoods throughout the city. The program is called Live Youngstown and will achieve the goal of returning vacant homes to productive and taxpaying use as market-rate, market-ready products, thereby increasing homeownership, population, and tax base in the city. The program will be available citywide.

The program will have four components:

1. The first component will provide direct support to the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation to improve water and waste water systems in vacant homes being renovated. This will allow YNDC to renovate a higher volume of vacant housing to sell at market rate to homeowners throughout the City of Youngstown.

2. The second component will provide support to homebuyers purchasing homes for sale to update relevant water and waste water systems in homes being purchased. YNDC will manage this process and no funds will be provided directly to homebuyers.

3. The third component will provide direct support to the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation to provide first mortgage loans to homebuyers that fall below the risk tolerance of traditional lenders, but meet YNDC’s criteria for the organization’s high-accountability loan product. YNDC will also use the city’s support to leverage an additional funding for this purpose.

4. The fourth component will launch an aggressive Live Youngstown marketing campaign that highlights the new homebuyers and focuses on cultivating positive neighborhood perceptions and broadening the pipeline of individuals interested in purchasing homes in Youngstown neighborhoods.

More program details will be provided in the coming weeks.

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

On Saturday, March 18, over 80 volunteers from AmeriCorps NCCC, AmeriCorps VISTA, Boy Scouts Troop 2, Cub Scouts, Hope for Renewal/Tabernacle Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Prince of Peace Church, Progress Mahoning Valley, Victory Christian Center, Sigma Tau Gamma, UPS Freight, US to U.S., YSU Anthropology Colloquium, YSU Honors, YSU Scholars, and YSU Student Nurses Association helped clean out a vacant home at 3235 Sunnybrooke Drive and cleaned up Mineral Springs Avenue

at a YNDC Neighborhood Workday. YNDC will rehabilitate 3235 Sunnybrooke Drive and will be further improving Mineral Springs Avenue. Volunteers removed brush and debris and edged and scraped the sidewalks on Mineral Springs and removed contents, wall coverings, cabinets, and carpeting from the vacant home. 170 cubic yards of debris were removed from the two workday sites and 850 linear feet of sidewalk was scraped. Many thanks to all the volunteers, Pizza Joe’s Cornersburg for donating lunch, and Hope for Renewal/Tabernacle Evangelical Presbyterian Church for providing snacks!

Friday, March 24, 2017

During the month of April you have THREE opportunities to get involved in your community.

Be part of making Youngstown’s neighborhoods a great place to live, work, and play! Help us REVITALIZE our city!

Indianola Corridor Workday:

Help us clean up vacant lots and clean up in the Indianola Corridor. Saturday, April 1st, 8:30am - 12:30pm. Meet at Cardinal Mooney High School 2545 Erie Street

Fairgreen Community Garden Workday:

Help us clean up the Fairgreen Community Garden and get it ready for the growing season. Saturday, April 8th, 9:30am -12:30pm. Fairgreen Community Garden 230 Fairgreen Ave

Idora Neighborhood Workday:

Help us board up and clean up vacant homes in the Idora Neighborhood. Saturday, April 15th, 8:30am – 12:30pm. Meet at 820 Canfield Road

White House Budget CHIEF Mick Mulvaney tried but failed recently to rationalize the Donald Trump administration’s slashes to longstanding social-service and economic-development programs in its proposed fiscal year 2018 federal budget.

The federal government, he said, “can’t spend money on programs just because they sound good or great.”

Such hazy reasoning rings hollow in attempting to justify deep cuts to such successful – and yes, arguably great – programs as Community Development Block Grants and Meals on Wheels.

Legislative leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate should recognize as much and restore funding for those programs as one of their first moves in tinkering with the president’s budget outline for discretionary spending.

CDBG’s HISTORY OF SUCCESS

The CDBG program has survived many threats of budget cuts over its 43-year history. As one of the longest-running programs of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, it funds affordable housing, anti-poverty programs and infrastructure development.

In Youngstown, CDBG has expedited neighborhood revitalization. According to Ian Beniston, executive director of the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp., those funds are used each year to repair and restore dozens of houses.

Youngstown Mayor John McNally points out that those funds also fuel many vital services, such as health clinics, the United Way, Goodwill Industries and lead-paint safety programs.

In short, aging urban industrial communities like Youngstown have come to rely on CDBG as a lifeline to soften the blow of hits from shrinking tax bases and severe population losses.

Likewise, the Meals on Wheels program has served as a lifeline for millions of senior citizens and other home-bound individuals, including hundreds in our region.

The value of that program has long been clear. It significantly improves diet quality, increases nutrient intakes, reduces food insecurity and improves quality-of-life among the recipients, studies have shown. In addition, it saves government money in the long run by reducing the need of recipients to use hospitals, nursing homes or other expensive services.

DON’T MESS WITH DEFENSE

We’re confident budget negotiators can find adequate places in Trump’s “Skinny Budget” to trim without taking an ax to the integrity of CDBG and Meals on Wheels.

One place they should keep their paws off, however, is the Department of Defense.

As we commented last week when the spending blueprint first was released, the president’s proposed $54 billion boost to military spending would most likely stand to benefit one of the Valley’s largest employers and greatest assets – the Youngstown Air Reserve Station in Vienna Township. Its future would be strengthened by investment in a new more modern fleet of C130J transport planes, an investment that beefed-up defense dollars certainly would make more likely.

But such new investments in military needs should not preclude reinvestment in such critical community and humanitarian needs perhaps best exemplified by CDBG and Meals on Wheels.

To read the full story from the Vindicator, click here.

Monday, March 27, 2017

On Saturday, March 25, residents, community leaders, and representatives from YPD, YSU, and YNDC participated in a safety training at Homestead Park.

The training outlined the principles of CPTED, or Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, and applied these to a park setting. Participants worked in groups to complete a CPTED analysis of Homestead Park, identifying issues that could be contributing to undesirable activity at the park. Groups then identified recommendations for improving the park, such as increasing general maintenance, repairing or replacing playground equipment and playground surface, installation of additional seating, installation of lighting, installation of an additional basketball court, renovating or replacing the outdoor pavilion, replacing BBQ grills, installing a drinking water fountain, repairing the front steps to the pavilion, increasing programming for users of all ages, and the installation of a walking trail and obstacle course. The safety training was conducted as part of the Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation project, which seeks to reduce crime on the South Side of Youngstown through the collaborative efforts of law enforcement, community development, criminal justice researchers, neighborhood residents, and other community stakeholders.

Monday, March 27, 2017

On Monday, March 27, members of Victory School of Ministry (VSOM) helped YNDC fight blight by painting and prepping boards

for AmeriCorps NCCC Maple 7 to use on board up projects throughout the city. Thank you to VSOM for volunteering their time and helping us REVITALIZE!

There are many ways volunteers can help make Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley a better place to live.

Non-profits need help every day with everything from tutoring students to cleaning up vacant properties, but it can be overwhelming to pick one place to donate time. Now, a new app, specialized for the Mahoning Valley, can make the process a lot easier.

The app is called Love This Place. It matches the user’s interests with volunteer opportunities.

Tiffany Sokol, housing director of the Youngstown Neighborhood Corporation (YDNC), is excited about the app. She’s not afraid to get her hands dirty and hopes the new app will help find volunteers who will do the same.

“It matches people with their interests. You are going to get connected with volunteer opportunities that you may not have known existed, that really fit what you’re passionate about,” Sokol said.“There is so much work to do in this community. We really can’t get it all done without having volunteers involved in what we are doing.”

Joe Varacalli, director of Love This Place, said the application works much like a dating app. You input your interests and then the app will alert you when a volunteer opportunity comes up. It helps potential volunteers take that first step.

“Most people we’ve talked to have considered volunteering. They like volunteering, but they just don’t know how to start.” Varacalli said.”We want to make that as easy as possible to get plugged in.”

The app officially launches Thursday, but the website is up and running so organizations and volunteers can sign up now – it takes about three minutes.

“I think there is a great sense of satisfaction in being able to physically see a change in our community from the work of your own hands,” Sokol said. “This app is providing the opportunity for more people to get involved and do that.”

Love This Place is hosting an open house from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday, March 30 at the Tyler History Center. Admission is free. Youngstown Mayor John McNally will speak at the event along with Jim Cossler from the Youngstown Business Incubator.

To read the full story from WKBN, click here.

Thursday, March 30, 2017

On Wednesday, March 29, Ian Beniston was inducted into Phi Kappa Phi Chapter 143. Ian represented YNDC as the Executive Board of the YSU Chapter of Phi Kappa Phi acknowledged the commitment of the YNDC team

and YNDC’s work to improve neighborhoods throughout the City of Youngstown. Phi Kappa Phi has found YNDC to exhibit the ethical and scholastic standards of this honor society whose motto is "Let the love of learning rule humanity." Phi Kappa Phi recognizes and promotes academic excellence in all fields of higher education and engages the community of scholars in service to others. More information can be found at http://www.phikappaphi.org/.

House hunting? Well, look no further than the north side of Youngstown.

The Youngstown Neighborhood Development Cooperation hosted an open house Thursday in the Crandall Park neighborhood.

A gorgeous three-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath historic home was the feature. It’s one of 75 houses completely restored by YNDC.

The organization has fixed over 300 homes across the city.

Director Ian Beniston said he can see the change each renovated house brings to its neighborhood and to Youngstown as a whole.

“In all of these neighborhoods, I kind of have a picture in my mind of how things were and how they’ve changed over time,” he said. “That’s what keeps you going every day. You’re able to see the change.”

The featured house is priced at $65,000 and is open to owner-occupant buyers.

To read the full article from WKBN, click here.