Neighborhoods

Phil Kidd is the Complete & Green Streets + Trail manager for the City of Cleveland. He previously served as the Special Project Manager for Northwest Neighborhoods CDC on the west side of the city.

In Youngstown, Phil served as the City of Youngstown Director of Events & Special Projects; Senior Organizer with the Mahoning Valley Organizing Collaborative; Staff Consultant for the YSU Journalism Department; Associate Director of Youngstown CityScape and; was owner of Youngstown Nation and author of the blog, Defend Youngstown.

Mr. Kidd was also a co-founder of the former City Club of the Mahoning Valley and is a Community Affiliate with the YSU Center for Working Class Studies.

He has a Masters Degree from Youngstown State University in Criminal Justice. His thesis focused on the effect of neighborhood-based community development's impact on crime in older industrial cities by way of a case study of YNDC's efforts in the Idora neighborhood. He also has Graduate Certificate in Local Government Management from Cleveland State University.

He is a graduate of PICO Community Organizing Weeklong Training; Cleveland Neighborhood Leadership Institute's Community Facilitator Training; Racial Equity Institute Training; Leadership Mahoning Valley; and the Mahoning Valley Local Government Leadership Academy.

LOCAL TOPICS ON TV

“A Conversation with Dee” (Sunday at 7:30 a.m. on WYTV-TV): Host Dee Crawford talks with officials from the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation about the work they’ve done over the past year and the neighborhoods and projects they are targeting for next year. To read the full story from The Vindicator, click here. 

The power of persistence and partnerships paid off prodigiously for Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley this week.

On Tuesday, Elaine L. Chao, secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation, formally announced in Washington that a consortium of Valley institutions will be awarded a $10.85 million infrastructure improvement grant from the Better Utiliizing Investments to Leverage Development [BUILD] program.

The significance of that award cannot be overstated. The Youngstown proposal stands out as the one and only urban BUILD application among many from Ohio that received funding in the program this year. It also stands out as among only 91 projects to get the green light out of 851 applicants seeking $10.9 billion nationwide.

The top-tier quality of the Youngstown proposal drew special attention from Chao and other U.S. DOT brass as the only federal BUILD grant recipient to receive a special invite to attend Tuesday’s official announcement ceremony. Youngstown Mayor Jamael Tito Brown was among the honored attendees.

From our perspective, however, we’ve known for several years now that the project proposal stood out with singular supremacy. Essentially the same project had sought DOT funding each year since 2016 but missed the cut by a hair each time. This year’s proposal, with some added tinkering, clearly stood out as having all the right stuff.

First, elements of the city’s SMART2 [Strategic & Sustainable, Medical & Manufacturing, Academic & Arts, Residential & Recreational, Technology & Training] proposal fully meet the principal criteria for BUILD funding. The major elements of SMART2 focus squarely on road and public transportation improvements. The total $26.2 million project to renovate and modernize downtown Youngstown and the Fifth Avenue corridor does just that.

The grant proposal calls for putting Fifth Avenue on a so-called “road diet,’ reducing it from six lanes to a divided boulevard with a landscaped median and one traffic lane on each side.

Other major structural and aesthetic enhancements are planned for major downtown streets including Federal, Commerce, Phelps and Front.

New to this year’s grant is a component that strengthens the all-important public-transportation dimension. It calls for activating autonomous driverless shuttle vehicles to connect the Mercy Health medical campus, Youngstown State University, the downtown central business district and the new chill-can plant and research campus operated by Joseph Co. International on the city’s East Side.

In those and other respects, the proposal meets and beats the areas under evaluation. They include safety, economic competitiveness, quality of life, environmental protection, energy independence, innovation and community partnerships. To read the full story from The Vindicator, click here.

Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. is sponsoring a cleanup in a South Side neighborhood Saturday.

Volunteers should meet at 8:30 a.m. at 820 Canfield Road before proceeding to Clearmont Drive in the Newport area. Cleanup will end at 12:30 p.m. To volunteer or get information, call YNDC at 330-480-0423. To read the full story from The Vindicator, click here. 

Monday, December 17, 2018

On Saturday, December 15, seventeen volunteers helped to clean up vacant properties on Clearmont Drive at the Newport Neighborhood Workday.

Volunteers from Tabernacle Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Team Rubicon, and YSUscape cleaned up 40 cubic yards of debris, removed 5 illegally-dumped tires, scraped 300 linear feet of sidewalk, and installed 7 LED security lights. We'd like to thank all the volunteers for their hard work!

Tuesday, December 18, 2018

On Monday, December 10, the Ohio CDC Association awarded YNDC
with a $35,000 Ohio Microbusiness Development Grant.

The grant will be used to
provide technical assistance to entrepreneurs in Mahoning County. Many thanks
to the Ohio CDC Association for their support!

Wednesday, December 19, 2018

On Thursday, December 13, 2018, the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation was awarded two $750,000 grants, totaling $1.5 million from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh’s Affordable Housing Program for housing development in the City of Youngstown.

PNC is the member bank supporting YNDC’s application and partnering on both projects. One grant award will be used to construct three new homes for affordable homeownership and the second grant award will be used to complete the rehabilitation of twenty homes occupied by low-income homeowners in the first, second, and sixth wards of Youngstown. “YNDC and our partners are excited to announce these major investments that will allow continued progress in stabilizing neighborhoods and improving the overall housing quality of the City of Youngstown, one house at a time. We are grateful to the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh for the grant awards and to PNC, the Mahoning County Land Bank, City of Youngstown and other partners for their support of these projects,” Ian Beniston, YNDC Executive Director.

The Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh has awarded Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. two grants totaling $1.5 million to build and renovate houses as part of the bank’s Affordable Housing Program.

One grant will be used to build three new homes, while the second will rehabilitate 20 homes for low-income homeowners. PNC served as the Federal Home Loan Bank member supporting YNDC’s application and will serve as a partner on both projects.

“YNDC and our partners are excited to announce these major investments that will allow continued progress in stabilizing neighborhoods and improving the overall housing quality of the city of Youngstown, one house at a time,” said Ian Beniston, executive director of YNDC, in a release. “We are grateful to the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh for the grant awards and to PNC, the Mahoning County Land Bank, city of Youngstown and other partners for their support of these projects.” To read the full story from the Business Journal, click here. 

The Federal home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh’s Affordable Housing Program awarded the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation with two grants totaling $1.5 million.

The two $750,00 grants will be used for housing development projects throughout the city of Youngstown. To read the full story from The Vindicator, click here.

The Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation was awarded two $750,000 grants on Thursday, December 13, totaling $1.5 million from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh's Affordable Housing Program for housing development in the City of Youngstown. 

According to a news release, PNC is the member bank supporting YNDC's application and partnering on both projects. One grant award will be used to construct three new homes for affordable homeownership and the second grant award will be used to complete the rehabilitation of twenty homes occupied by low-income homeowners in the first, second, and sixth wards of Youngstown. To read the full story from WFMJ, click here.