Neighborhoods

The Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. celebrated the opening of the Glenwood Fresh Market Tuesday.

The market will provide free produce to Youngstown households earning less than 200% of federal poverty guidelines. Registration is required.

“We’ve already registered 1,100 members and we’ve had about 775 members serviced through the store,” said Ian Beniston, executive director of YNDC.

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

Monday, April 18, 2022

On April 14, 2022, 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!

Tuesday, April 26, 2022

On Monday, April 25 CareSource made a $2,500 donation to the Glenwood Fresh Market.

The market, located at 2915 Glenwood Avenue, provides year-round access to FREE fresh fruits, vegetables, and other healthy food items to residents of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley. The market also provides free health screenings, nutrition literacy courses, cooking demonstrations and other resources to members. Residents can become members if they are a household living under 200 percent of Federal Poverty Guidelines or a SNAP recipient. Please call 330.333.3561 to become a member.

Since the coronavirus pandemic began, the number of homeless children living at city shelters has increased significantly.

Youngstown City Schools officials have also identified three times as many students in need of assistance this year, compared to 2019. John Muckridge, Rescue Mission of the Mahoning Valley president and CEO, said shelter workers expected to take in more women when the shelter moved to its new, 50,000 square-foot facility along Martin Luther King Boulevard in Youngstown, which offers more bed capacity.

But they didn’t expect the number of children who came with them. In 2019, Youngstown City School buses were only picking up a handful of students living at the rescue mission. But in the last few months, that number has tripled, Muckridge said.

On March 8, there were 44 children staying overnight at the rescue mission. That means that for the first time in the mission’s history, there were more children than adults in the Women and Families department on any given day since it opened in 1982, according to a news release from the rescue mission. There are 86 total beds in the family department. The mission counts the number of children by the amount of beds occupied each night, rather than by a head count. The monthly average of child overnight stays increased from 225 stays in 2020 to 680 stays in just the first few months of 2022, according to rescue mission data. Though there are fewer individual children who spent at least one night at the shelter — 90 in 2020, down to 68 this year, the mission reported — the large increase in overnight stays suggests they’re staying for longer.

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

A $1.1 million brownfield remediation grant was awarded Tuesday to the Columbiana County Land Reutilization Corp., more commonly known as the Land Bank, by Lt. Gov. John Husted to be used for remediation and demolition of the former East Junior High School in the city's East End.

During an afternoon press conference attended by state, county and city officials, Husted said he and Gov. Mike DeWine conceived the brownfield remediation grant program during the pandemic.

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

Wednesday, April 27, 2022

Natasha and her family have lived in their home for 6 years.

Severe roof leaks were causing damage throughout their home. By replacing Natasha’s roof, YNDC eliminated the leaks and prevented further damage to their home. “It made a big difference. My house is warmer now. We don’t have any leaking in the roof or water leaks around the house going into the basement anymore. It impacts me a lot because we don’t have a lot of income and this program helped us a lot. I told his mother about it and she got into it too, because I know with her also being low income and everything going on it’s hard for people and for us to pay for everything,” Natasha said.

Monday, May 2, 2022

The Glenwood Fresh Market (Market) completed its first full month of operation.

Since the market opened it has enrolled 1,348 individuals as members, 646 households and 1,191 individuals have been served, and $25,829.67 in produce (totaling more than 30,000 pounds) has been provided. 
YNDC has partnered with Vantage Aging, an organization that helps adults 55+ receive job skills training and re-enter the workforce to place a participant at the Market to assist with day-to-day operations. The Market continues to survey members and has begun to adjust produce offerings based on member preferences and has added several new items over the past month in response to requests, including ginger, green tomatoes, and spinach. Work is also underway to begin health screenings, cooking demonstrations, and nutrition education activities at the Market in partnership with Mercy Health.
HUGE thank you to the market's primary supporters including: USDA, Mercy Health Foundation - Mahoning Valley, and The Healthpath Foundation of Ohio!

Monday, May 2, 2022

Effective May 2, 2022, YNDC has provided all items in the Community Toolshed to be integrated into Habitat for Humanity of Mahoning Valley's Tool Library.

Residents will now be able to check out these tools and many other items from Habitat's Tool Library. Habitat for Humanity Mahoning Valley plans to open the Tool Library in Summer 2022. For more information please call Habitat for Humanity Mahoning Valley at 330.743.7244. 

My late grandparents claimed the greater Glenwood neighborhood as their home in 1975.

Like myself and my family, the most beautiful thing about the greater Glenwood neighborhood is that it belongs to those of us who call it home. And I don’t just mean that figuratively: A recent survey conducted by the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation found that 79% of those who live in my neighborhood are homeowners. Strengthening that feeling of ownership is the fact that many of the people who live in these neighborhoods off Glenwood Avenue have been here all of their lives.

For this reason, the neighborhood has been able to keep a sense of community, even in the roughest of times economically. Because, like many predominantly Black neighborhoods across the country, we’ve seen some rough times. Economic hardships have left a blight of abandoned buildings, leading to a rise in crime and a decline in hyper-local resources. But when I say the Glenwood corridor belongs to its residents, I’m speaking beyond the names on property deeds, to the sense of accountability and responsibility myself and my neighbors feel towards each other and our community at-large.

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

East Liverpool housing inspectors are finding themselves facing dire housing conditions after a slowdown during the pandemic prevented them from being able to get inside homes to inspect, said housing inspector Kayla Crowl.

“We’ve really gotten to the worst of the worst when it comes to what we are handling,” Crowl said at the city health district’s April 20 board meeting. “These aren’t [where] they have garbage outside their house. It’s never that simple anymore. It’s different than any of us have seen and I’ve been here since 2018. I know that’s not a long time but it’s long enough to see this is abnormal. We are reaching some territory here that hasn’t ever been seen before.”

During the pandemic, inspectors were not able to get into these homes which delayed the inspection process, said health commissioner Carol Cowan. “Everything slowed down during COVID.”

“We weren’t going to pressure people during that,” Crowl said. “That wasn’t even an option. So we are finally able to.”

Housing inspector Amy Toot said that often, structural safety and sanitary issues are so severe that condemnation is immediately necessary. “We are getting into homes that have never had eyes on them before,” Toot said. “Homes that have had issues for a very long time and these issues can’t be seen from the exterior of the home.”

Crowl said calls seem to be more severe than ever on a consistent basis. “This is an every call scenario now,” Crowl said. “We’re getting more and more like this.”

Eighteen homes have been condemned in the past two months, Toot said. “We had nine condemned in March, nine in April, four search warrants in the last 30 days just to get into homes that are like that that are actually occupied by people living with or without water, typically without,” Toot said. “The last three search warrants resulted in condemning the home and removing the people. It’s just becoming very very everyday.”

To see the full story from Morning Journal, click here.