Neighborhoods

Tuesday, April 6, 2021

The Eastgate Regional Council of Governments (Eastgate) has awarded the City of Youngstown a $21,000 grant for the Glenwood Avenue Active Transportation Improvement Plan.

This project is a comprehensive study to improve pedestrian, cycling, and public transit infrastructure along Glenwood Avenue from Mahoning Avenue in Youngstown to Shields Road in Boardman in order to improve access to economic and recreation opportunities for residents who live in the adjacent neighborhoods. The plan will use Complete Streets and Safe Routes principles to make active transportation a safe, viable, and affordable option for residents. It will improve quality of life, health outcomes, access to jobs, prevent pedestrian fatalities, and help to overcome racial inequities perpetuated by the regional transportation network. The City of Youngstown will serve as the project sponsor with Boardman Township as co-sponsor. Mill Creek MetroParks, the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation (YNDC), multiple neighborhood groups, and corridor businesses will serve as partners. A qualified transportation planning firm will be hired to prepare the plan in coordination with partners.

The deindustrialization of the Northeast and Midwest in the 1970s left Youngstown, Ohio, scarred with abandoned factories, high unemployment rates and dilapidated neighborhoods.

Youngstown’s declining economic situation led many former residents to flee for greener pastures. And while there have been notable attempts to bring the city back from economic ruin, they haven’t been completely successful.

But there are some Youngstown natives who have chosen to stay and work to revive their city, as chronicled in the new “America ReFramed” documentary “The Place That Makes Us,” directed by Karla Murthy.

To see the full story from Market place, click here.

Tuesday, April 6, 2021

On Tuesday, April 6, Premier Bank awarded YNDC with a $25,000 grant for the Community Financial Empowerment Initiative.

This program includes YNDC’s housing counseling and serves as the foundation for the YNDC’s comprehensive community development model aimed at increasing economic opportunity and quality of life for traditionally underserved city residents, including increased financial stability, quality affordable housing, and asset building.
As a HUD-Approved Housing Counseling Agency, YNDC offers pre- and post-purchase one-on-one counseling services and online education, to assist low- to moderate-income city residents identify and overcome barriers to homeownership, including inadequate savings, income, credit history, and understanding of the home buying process and prepare them for future homeownership, and to provide existing low- to moderate-income homeowners with resources to maximize their limited incomes and minimize repair costs so that they can avoid foreclosure and improve their living conditions.
Many thanks to the Premier Bank for their support of this critical free service! 

Premier Bank presented a $25,000 check to the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation Tuesday.

The money will be used for the agency’s Housing Counseling Program, which provides counseling to individuals who want to improve the quality of their housing. Issues could include purchasing a new home or improving their rental housing.

To see the full story from WKBN, click here.

Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. received $25,000 from Premier Bank to support their housing counseling program.

The program assists clients with identifying and resolving the barriers to home ownership.

To see the full story from The Business Journal, click here.

The program which started in 2014 helps hundreds of people each year by teaching things like budgeting for basic financial needs and even literacy.

A $25,000 check from Premier bank is helping people in the Valley become successful homeowners.

The money is going to the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation's Community Financial Empowerment Initiative.

To see the full story from WFMJ, click here.

Want to know the organization setting the tone for Youngstown’s revitalization, look no further than the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation.

From renovations, to helping residents become homeowners, to delving into commercial to help create complete neighborhoods, YNDC is changing the way residents feel about where they live. Executive Director Ian Benison and Housing Director Tiffany Sokol sat down to talk all this and their favorite area gems. Enjoyed with some  Noble Creature courtesy of Ian. 

To listen to full podcast from Homes and Hops, click here.

If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em. 

A Youngstown, Ohio, nonprofit has been following that strategy by reaching out — sometimes in a threatening tone — to absentee landlords who own vacant neighborhood eyesores. The message the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. sends is simple: If you don't want to fix your property then sell it to us. Or, even better, donate it.

A frequent target of the letters: out-of-state and foreign landlords, said Ian Beniston, the development corporation's executive director.

"We do see a direct correlation between out-of-state owners and the condition of properties," Beniston said. "And it's not a good correlation."

 In the past 10 years, Beniston said, his group has acquired 157 formerly-vacant properties — many that had been owned by out-of-state or foreign landlords.

To listen to full podcast from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, click here.

Monday, April 19, 2021

On Friday, April 16, Citizens Bank awarded YNDC with a $10,000 grant for the Community Financial Empowerment Initiative.

This program includes YNDC’s housing counseling and serves as the foundation for the YNDC’s comprehensive community development model aimed at increasing economic opportunity and quality of life for traditionally underserved city residents, including increased financial stability, quality affordable housing, and asset building.
As a HUD-Approved Housing Counseling Agency, YNDC offers pre- and post-purchase one-on-one counseling services and online education, to assist low- to moderate-income city residents identify and overcome barriers to homeownership, including inadequate savings, income, credit history, and understanding of the home buying process and prepare them for future homeownership, and to provide existing low- to moderate-income homeowners with resources to maximize their limited incomes and minimize repair costs so that they can avoid foreclosure and improve their living conditions.
Thank you to Citizens Bank for their support of this critical free service!

It's Thursday, April 15, 2021, and thanks for the feedback after my Tuesday column about how the city might spend its $88.6 million in federal stimulus funds.

I've received emails, texts, Facebook comments proving that most people are thoughtful  — and know more than I do. 

Facebook folks say "Borts field needs a redo ... pave the damn streets in downtown ... open up the parks ... "

Not everyone shared my view. Eric Broviak said in an email: "So instead of grand concepts like an enterprise zone (think Chill Can Plant) the city really could use some better roads and cleaned up areas."

Rick Ostheimer wrote on Facebook: "I have emailed the Mayor and my Councilperson suggesting the city use the windfall to fund the remaining sewer and wastewater treatment projects already agreed to in its consent agreement with the OH EPA. That would result in turning over the benefits to residents in the form of lower sewer bills than currently anticipated."

Always a Youngstown thought leader, Ian Beniston, executive director of the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation, wrote: "I think significant funding needs to be spent on housing: blight elimination, home repair for low income homeowners, a housing construction and renovation fund to provide gap funding to developers to incite more and much needed housing development and vacant renovation, down payment assistance and additional code enforcement and rental registration inspectors."

To see the full story from Mahoning Matters, click here.