Neighborhoods

Thursday, November 4, 2021

On Wednesday, November 3, the Walter and Caroline Watson Foundation awarded a $15,000 grant to YNDC for the renovation of 2915 Glenwood Avenue.

The funds will be used to renovate the vacant retail plaza into a modern retail facility with multiple units for neighborhood serving businesses. This project is part of ongoing efforts to improve the greater Glenwood Avenue corridor. Thank you to the Walter and Caroline Watson Foundation for the support!

On the west side of Youngstown, a former Sparkle Market along Mahoning Avenue has become a beauty products business.

At the Mahoning Plaza, a building that once housed Bottom Dollar Foods is today a plasma center.  Along Canfield Road in the Cornersburg district, a former Giant Eagle grocery is now a Dollar General and a pet salon.

This pattern is evident across the city. Once-thriving markets that supplied fresh food and produce to residents on each side of town have closed, hollowing out a vital source of nutrition for the most vulnerable population of the community.

So dire is the situation that four years ago, Mayor Jamael Tito Brown declared the city a food desert, citing  data that show a sizeable portion of the population lives one mile or more from a full-service grocery store.

“We told him we needed a grocery store in the city and wanted him to put a task force in place,” says Rose Carter, executive director and lead organizer of Action, a nonprofit coalition of faith-based organizations that addresses community needs. Just as the task force was beginning to take shape, however, the COVID-19 pandemic stalled any progress.

As it stands, just four full-service grocery stores sit within city limits, according to data compiled by the Department of Geography and Urban Regional Studies at Youngstown State University.  Three of these grocers are located on the peripheries, bordering other communities. A Save-A-Lot along South Avenue near the intersection of East Indianola Avenue serves as the single central grocer in the city.

To address this, in 2020, Action initiated “pop-up” markets across Youngstown in cooperation with another nonprofit, Flying High Inc., Carter says. These markets, supplied with fresh produce by Flying High’s Grow Urban Farm, set up temporary stands throughout the city on select days to provide access to food to otherwise isolated neighborhoods.

But the effect of pop-up markets is limited in scope and available only during the warm weather months. “The pop-up markets were not enough,” Carter says.

This led Action and its partners to consider an idea novel to Youngstown – a mobile grocery truck that could supply key areas of the community with fresh vegetables, fruit, dairy and frozen products year-round. “People in the area need food. Fresh food,” Carter says with emphasis.

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

Monday, November 8, 2021

On Thursday, November 4, the Frank and Pearl Gelbman Foundation awarded a $25,000 grant to YNDC for the renovation of 2915 Glenwood Avenue.

The funds will be used to renovate the vacant retail plaza into a modern retail facility with multiple units for neighborhood serving businesses. This project is part of ongoing efforts to improve the greater Glenwood Avenue corridor. Big thank you to the Frank and Pearl Gelbman Foundation for the support!

Monday, November 8, 2021

On Thursday, November 4, the John F. Hynes and John D. Finnegan Foundation awarded a $12,500 grant to YNDC for the renovation of 2915 Glenwood Avenue.

The funds will be used to renovate the vacant retail plaza into a modern retail facility with multiple units for neighborhood serving businesses. This project is part of ongoing efforts to improve the greater Glenwood Avenue corridor. Many thanks to the John F. Hynes and John D. Finnegan Foundation for the support!

Monday, November 8, 2021

On Thursday, November 4, the Ward Beecher Foundation awarded a $50,000 grant to YNDC for the renovation of 2915 Glenwood Avenue.

The funds will be used to renovate the vacant retail plaza into a modern retail facility with multiple units for neighborhood serving businesses. This project is part of ongoing efforts to improve the greater Glenwood Avenue corridor. Huge thank you to the Ward Beecher Foundation for the support!

Susan Payton is the Glenwood Fresh Market Manager for the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation. Susan manages operations of the Glenwood Fresh Market and is responsible for the facility operation and program service goals: including inspiring healthy eating, increasing access to fresh food, and managing a clean, organized and functional environment. 

Contact Susan at spayton@yndc.org.  

Youngstown could be close to getting rid of many of the abandoned houses in the city.

The Mahoning County Land Bank said with the help of a state grant, the project could be finished within the next two years.

One of the homes under control of the Land Bank is on Oakland Avenue in the Brier Hill area. It’s been vacant since the owner passed away.

“The floors are giving way, so there’s no safe way to walk through that house. Every system in that house pretty much has failed, heating, the windows, the doors, everything,” said Debora Flora with the Land Bank.

The house faces similar issues as many other vacant homes. It would cost more money to repair than to tear down, so the plan is to bring the house and many others down.

To see the full story from WKBN, click here.

The Mahoning County Land Bank recently secured $500,000 in state funds to demolish houses and commercial buildings next year and is in line for more dollars to support potentially hundreds of additional demolitions in the next several years, officials say.

“The end of Youngstown’s inventory of vacant, abandoned, unsafe and beyond-repair housing is in sight,” Debora Flora, executive director of the land bank, said in a news release.

“The initial funds will allow us to raze about 40 houses,” she said. 

The land bank and its partners believe that, after many years of demolitions, Youngstown is about 800 demolitions away from clearing the city’s inventory of beyond-repair housing, the release states. 

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

Tuesday, November 23, 2021

On Thursday, November 18, 2021, the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation was awarded a $1 million grant from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Cincinnati’s Affordable Housing Program for home repair in the City of Youngstown.

Premier Bank is the member bank supporting YNDC’s application and project. The grant award will be used to replace approximately 100 roofs in the City of Youngstown in 2022.

YNDC is grateful to the Federal Home Loan Bank of Cincinnati, Premier Bank, City of Youngstown, The Raymond John Wean Foundation, Alta Head Start, Flying High and other partners for their support and partnership in making this grant award possible.  

Thursday evening, Youngstown CityScape recognized 12 people and organizations for their efforts in restoring parts of the city.

The Beautification Awards were given out at Concept Studio downtown. About 50 people showed up.

Among the awardees were the group that put together the Robinson-Shuba statue and the YSU students who painted a mural along an Andrews Avenue wall.

Several homeowners were also recognized. Sue and Gary Sexton for turning their yard on Redondo Road into a butterfly garden and Darla Ballinger for the meditation and relaxation sanctuary she created behind her house on West Boston.

“I do Tai Chi back there, I have tea back there, I hold hands back there, I hug people back there. We take walks back there and sometimes I do ‘wine-o-clock’ back there,” Ballinger said.

Also recognized was Bob Barko for his work on the State Theater Block Project and the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation for its renovation of the former Carmelite Monastery.

To see the full story from WKBN, click here.