Neighborhoods

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

On
Tuesday, February 13, seven YNDC team members, two YNDC board members, and several community
stakeholders attended Measuring Racial
Equity: A Groundwater Approach at the Raymond John Wean Foundation
presented by Racial Equity, LLC.

The training focused on historical and
current roadblocks to racial equity and the underlying causes of widespread
statistical racial disparity in healthcare, education, criminal justice, and
other systems. Many thanks to The Raymond John Wean Foundation for the
opportunity to attend!

Across Youngstown, work is being done to revitalize neighborhoods. And no one’s working alone.

To watch the full video from The Business Journal, click here.

Hear how YNDC works with neighborhood groups.

To watch the full video from The Business Journal, click here.

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

On Saturday, February 17, twenty-nine volunteers helped rehabilitate the interior of 2906 Glenwood Avenue.

Participants from The Colony, Neighborhood Connections, Tabernacle Evangelical Presbyterian Church/Hope for Renewal, Thrive Mahoning Valley, Us to U.S., Youngstown CityScape, YSUscape, and the YSU Honors College helped to scrape and paint walls, patch drywall, and clean inside the historic 4-unit building on the Glenwood Avenue Corridor. The building is being rehabilitated by YNDC partner organization Hope for Renewal. Special thanks to Hope for Renewal for providing refreshments.

The Western Reserve Port Authority on Wednesday authorized a first agreement to help the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. acquire and renovate a building to promote redevelopment of the Glenwood Avenue neighborhood in Youngstown.

The authority agreed to buy a former Rescue Mission of the Mahoning Valley warehouse and office building at 2246 Glenwood for up to $125,000 plus closing costs, lease it to YNDC for 18 months and then sell it to YNDC.

Ian Beniston, YNDC executive director, said the value of the port authority being involved is it allows YNDC time to attract the resources necessary and create a plan to renovate the building to make it move-in ready for tenants to use. To read the full story from The Vindicator, click here.

The Western Reserve Port Authority will move to purchase a property on Glenwood Avenue on the south side of Youngstown to assist the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation in its economic development efforts.

“We hope to use it to attract business to the neighborhood,” said Ian Beniston, executive director of YNDC. “This is part of a series of steps we are taking that will hopefully, over the long term, stabilize the corridor and attract much more investment than is coming now,” The port authority Board of Directors voted at their Wednesday meeting to enter into a cooperative agreement with YNDC and to purchase the property at 2246 Glenwood Ave. for a sum not exceeding $125,000. “We’ve already been to the Realtor and given a deposit and signed our offer,”said Anthony Trevena, the director of Economic Development for the Northern Ohio Development and Finance Authority, a branch of the port authority. “It’s listed for about $200,000, so we are getting a pretty good deal on it.” Once purchased, the port authority will enter into a triple net lease with YNDC. “They will be responsible for all the management, maintenance, insurance, repairs, grass and so forth, and they will essentially be responsible for the facility and can sublet,” Trevena said. During that time, YNDC hopes renovate the property, which was previously owned by the Rescue Mission of the Mahoning Valley, and ready it for commercial use.

“[We] will create some market-ready modern space for small businesses,” Beniston said. “We do know there are some interested parties.” At the end of 18 months, YNDC then will acquire the property from the port authority. “In a sense, they needed some time to establish their business plan, to work on applying for some grant funding. What our role here is to take it off the market and to preserve it for them to develop the property into a facility to create jobs for our community,” Trevena said. To read the full story from the Tribune Chronicle, click here. 

The Taft Promise Neighborhood program has worked with 61 organizations, businesses and community groups to improve the 1.3-square-mile neighborhood. 

Some of the names on the list are easily recognizable: Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. and United Way of Youngstown and Mahoning Valley. Others aren’t as well known: Youngstown Inner City Gardens, Charity Funding Resources and United Returning Citizens. Regardless of how often their names appear in headlines, each of the 61 plays a crucial role in the revitalization of Taft Promise Neighborhood. “There’s room at the table for everyone,” says April Alexander, executive director of community organization. “That’s the key to meeting the needs of a neighborhood. It takes a city, all these factions, to meet the needs of a community.” Across Youngstown, partnerships have been formed at every level to revitalize the city. Some partnerships are simple. Youngstown CityScape, for example, donates flowers to neighborhood groups to beautify their areas, provided that the group takes care of them. Others, such as the alliance between Taft Promise Neighborhood and YNDC, delve deeper into the revitalization efforts. To read the full story from The Business Journal, click here. 

Across Youngstown, much work is underway to revitalize neighborhoods. The work done by larger groups is easily noticed – countering blight by tearing down houses beyond repair are community efforts that draw dozens – and then there the everyday efforts by residents in their neighborhoods that lay the foundation for those big projects.

This grassroots work is taking place across the city, transforming the landscape of Youngstown as activists spend countless – and sometimes thankless – hours working for something as simple as a bus stop, as Marguerite Douglas did in Lincoln Knolls.

On the West Side, John Slanina and the Rocky Ridge Neighborhood Association have brought new life to the Mahoning Avenue corridor, while on the South Side, the Rev. Ed Noga is part of a multifaith team that’s spurred activity in the Oak Hill neighborhood. And Sybil West, a lifelong resident of Bennington Avenue, has worked both on her own and as part of collaboratives to revitalize Youngstown. To read the full story from The Business Journal, click here. 

Friday, February 23, 2018

On Tuesday, February 20, the J. Ford Crandall Memorial Foundation awarded a $10,000 grant to YNDC.

The grant will be used to install a new metal roof on YNDC's property management garage. Many thanks to the J. Ford Crandall Memorial Foundation for the support!

When an East Side woman learned she could enter into a land contract – or a lease-to-own agreement – instead of renting, she thought it would leave more money in her pocket.

“Before I got into this home, I was paying close to $700 just for a three-bedroom house,” she said. “When you have a program that comes in and says, ‘Hey, rent to own, $200 a month, $300 a month,’ you think half of that money goes to food.”

The Lincoln Knolls neighborhood home was vacant for two years, and she learned she had to bring the house up to code in order to pass inspections to receive utilities. The home lacked a hot water tank, copper piping in the basement appeared to have been stolen, and there were electricity problems.

Vision Property Management, a South Carolina company, purchased the home for about $5,000. It then offered the woman, who asked to remain anonymous because she worries the company will evict her, a $29,000 land contract. With interest and other costs, she will spend nearly three times that amount by the time she completes her 20-year contract.

The home’s market value is less than $10,000.

The Vindicator spoke to her and two others who entered into land contracts with Vision Property Management.

The Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. and the Alliance for Congregational Transformation Influencing Our Neighborhoods plan to take a bus to Columbia, S.C., on Saturday to bill the company for demolitions and other costs associated with the company’s properties in Youngstown.

Vision markets land contracts, also known as rent-to-own or lease-to-own agreements, to prospective buyers who don’t qualify for home-mortgage loans, local officials say. Those buyers then assume the responsibility for maintenance and staying in compliance with city housing codes.

Vision still holds the deed, so if the buyer under the contract defaults on a payment, Vision keeps the money collected and the home.

Ian Beniston, YNDC executive director, said the bill for demolitions, grass cutting and other maintenance is in the tens of thousands of dollars. It’s difficult to determine an exact figure because the 30 or so properties Vision limited liability corporations own in the city frequently change hands, he said.

The company’s tactics have garnered media attention in outlets including The New York Times and landed it in court.

Wisconsin recently sued Vision in an attempt to forbid it from doing business in the state.

The lawsuit describes a “false, misleading and deceptive business scheme to induce Wisconsin consumers to lease, rent or purchase uninhabitable properties to their economic detriment.”

Fannie Mae, the government-backed mortgage giant, stopped selling foreclosed properties to Vision last year. To read the full story from The Vindicator, click here.