Neighborhoods

Ian Beniston credits the origins of the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. (YNDC) to a specific exchange between a resident and the Wean Foundation.  

It was 2007 and Beniston, who grew up on the north side of Youngstown, was pursuing a graduate degree in city planning at The Ohio State University in Columbus. For the past few months, he had been working with six other graduate students and a number of residents in the Idora neighborhood on the south side of Youngstown to develop a neighborhood plan. 

To read the full story from The Raymond John Wean Foundation, click here. 

Liam Hetzel grew up with parents who felt strongly about people’s obligation to vote in all elections, so in a little more than three months, he will be blackening lots of ovals. “I saw my parents who valued voting, so as a kid growing up, I learned the value of voting,” Hetzel, 17, a 2024 Boardman High School graduate, said.

Hetzel, who will turn 18 on Sept. 4 and enter Youngstown State University as a freshman, has every intention of visiting his polling place to cast his votes in the Nov. 5 general election – and not just for president. He also will make his voice heard via down-ballot voting, he added. Beforehand, though, Hetzel and a team of three fellow YSU students, Molly O’Brien, Kaziah Boudrey and James McGlone, worked on a community project earlier this summer to explore barriers to equal access to the polls as well as recommendations to remedy the problem.

Theirs was one of four eight-week projects for which 13 students presented their findings, recommendations and solutions during Wednesday morning’s Civic Innovation Transforming Youngstown summer internship program results at YSU’s Williamson College of Business Administration. The other nine participants who had formed teams of three or four for their two-month projects were Nikechi Onunwor, Shrijan Aryal, Cara Zawrotuk, Mykell Tynes, Alexandrea Lundborg, Samir Jirel, Jenna Witmer, Kariyae Johnson and Malena Whitfield.

Hetzel, who plans to major in biochemistry and pursue a career to further develop medicines, said he also had tried to bring greater awareness “of the whole ballot” to other Boardman High students. “We thought this issue needed help, especially to align with the presidential election,” McGlone, a mechanical engineering major, said.

In addition, the four students’ project was to emphasize the importance of casting votes in local elections and the effects their results have on people’s day-to-day lives, said O’Brien, who’s majoring in language arts education. For her part, Boudrey’s major is civil engineering.

The CITY program, with funding from a four-year National Science Foundation grant, allowed the interns to collaborate with community mentors from the city of Youngstown, the Community Foundation of the Mahoning Valley, the Youngstown Water Department and the Healthy Community Partnership to develop the projects aimed at improving the city and surrounding areas. The teams of students worked to identify community challenges, then propose solutions for solving them. The program’s value also lies in its ability to provide students with opportunities to see ways they can help solve city and community problems, Gianna Marinucci, a site supervisor, noted.

In addition, the CITY effort is a collaboration between the university and the Economic Action Group.

Along the way, the 13 students also toured an array of well-known sites such as Mill Creek Park, the Youngstown Flea, Penguin City Brewing Co., Youngstown City School District high schools, Westside Bowl, the Youngstown Business Incubator, Lanterman’s Mill, the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp., the Youngstown Historical Center of Industry and Labor and the DOPE Cider House & Winery, Venus Cataldo, a site coordinator, noted.

To read the full story from The Vindicator, click here. 

Youngstown's Board of Control has awarded Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. (YNDC) with funding to build new homes in the city. 

To read the full story from WFMJ, click here. 

Monday, August 12, 2024. 

On July 31, 2024, more than 40 members of the Youngstown Housing Task Force met with Jad Pernot, a representative of Youngstown Houses LLC. The purpose of the meeting was to review a Community Agreement with Jad Pernot and ask for Youngstown Houses LLC to commit to executing and fulfilling the agreement. The agreement included:
 

1. Provide a name and working phone number for the owner of Youngstown Houses, LLC, and the manager of Allstate Property Management, so that the Task Force can effectively communicate with both parties.
2. Register all unregistered rental and vacant housing units that you own within the City of Youngstown as required by law. Provide documentation to the Task Force that all rental properties owned by Youngstown Houses LLC have been registered.
3. Work with the City of Youngstown to coordinate the completion of all pending/outstanding rental inspections on residential rental properties owned by Youngstown Houses LLC in the City of Youngstown. Provide copies of the completed inspection reports to the Task Force to verify successful completion of the inspections.
4. Bring active code enforcement cases on all properties into full compliance with Youngstown’s Property Maintenance Code no later than February 14, 2025. Provide documentation to the Task Force that each case has been resolved and the respective property deemed in full compliance with the City of Youngstown Property Maintenance Code.
5. Respond to all outstanding tenant maintenance requests. Provide the Task Force with a written list of all outstanding tenant maintenance requests that have been resolved at the end of the 30 day period. Provide a name and working phone number for the maintenance supervisor to all tenants so that issues can be reported, documented, and addressed in a timely manner moving forward.
6. Provide professional communication in writing to all tenants. Provide rental receipts upon payment of rent. All other correspondence must be sent to tenants via mail.
7. Cease the acquisition of property, and management of additional property, within the City of Youngstown and Mahoning County until all of the issues outlined in this agreement have been fully resolved with documentation of such provided.
8. Meet with a group of community leaders with the Youngstown Housing Task Force every three months on the last Wednesday of the month at 1810 Volney Road, Youngstown, Ohio 44511 until all strategies in this Agreement have been fully satisfied. At these meetings, you will provide a written, signed progress report that demonstrates the progress made on all the strategies above, including all relevant addresses where issues have been resolved, what is currently in progress, and what remains outstanding.

Mr. Pernot would not agree to sign the agreement, would not provide the names of the company owners, and disclosed that Allstate Property Management has an ownership interest in Youngstown Houses LLC. The Youngstown Housing Task Force will continue to take community and legal action to hold Youngstown Houses LLC accountable. 
 

The Youngstown Housing Task Force wants a company that owns over 300 houses in the city to sign a community agreement with them, committing to making repairs and meeting other benchmarks set by members of the task force, but a representative of the company said the task force set an unreasonable timeline for a response.

The company, Youngstown Houses, LLC, has come under the radar of the task force following complaints from tenants about subpar living conditions, a lack of response to their requests for repairs and spikes in rental prices. Many of those rental properties have code violations.

The company purchased 290 single-family homes and 17 multi-family duplexes from Gary Crim, Inc., in April 2023 in a $5.6 million deal, county auditor’s records show.

The task force met Wednesday night and spoke on the phone with a representative of the company. A copy of the community agreement was emailed to the company and reviewed with the representative during that call. When the representative would not make a commitment, task force members gave the company 24 hours to respond.

Jad Pernot, who identified himself as the project manager for the company, spoke to WKBN after that meeting and said he could not sign such an agreement on the spot and felt that they were not given enough time to review it. He also questioned various deadlines for repairs that were mentioned in the agreement.

“They didn’t want to listen. They just wanted to ask this question and close the phone, and they shouted and closed the phone that you have 24 hours or we will proceed legally, so I told them, OK. Do as you wish,” he said.

“I feel like they are pushing us into a corner, and they don’t want to listen to what we have to say. They just want to say what they want to say, and they want an agreement, and they want a signature… They didn’t keep a space for discussion,” he added later.

Jack Daugherty, neighborhood stabilization director for the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation (YNDC) and member of the task force, said the task force is willing to make adjustments to the agreement with Youngstown Houses, LLC, if those at the company are committed to working with them.

To read the full story from WKBN, click here. 

Monday, September 16, 2024

On August 29, YNDC was awarded $150,000 in 6th Ward ARP funding to make physical improvements and eliminate blight along the Market Street corridor. The work will include repair and improvements to existing buildings, pedestrian scale infrastructure improvements such as benches and lighting at transit stops, vacant lot clean up and greening, and removal of dead trees and planting of new trees. Many thanks to the City of Youngstown and Councilwoman Anita Davis!

The Fund for Women and Girls is a community-led fund at the Community Foundation of the Mahoning Valley. The CFMV Fund for Women and Girls is now accepting nominations for the annual Gems of the Valley awards.

Nominations are being accepted now until Sept. 20, and honorees will be recognized at a dinner on Oct. 17 held at Drake’s Landing/Avion on the Water. As one of the mainstay events organized by the Fund for Women and Girls, Gems of the Valley aims to highlight the work done by local women to improve their communities and support women around them – work that is often overlooked and under-celebrated.

Honorees will be chosen from the nominations by the Fund for Women and Girls Guiding Circle and those selected will have the chance to talk about their work and inspirations at the dinner on October 17. Nomination forms and tickets can be found online or at the event page. There’s no price for admission. 

The 2023 class of Gems were: 

• Sustainable Youngstown activist and organizer Lynn Anderson 
• Thrive 10:10 operations director Meghan DeGregory 
• Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. housing program manager Jennifer Evans 
• Outreach Quilt and Artist Guild founder and artist Allison Smith 
• Mercy Health Resource Mothers manager Dee Traylor

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

The city’s Board of Control approved $200,000 in grants to small businesses at its meeting Thursday.

Grants ranging from $2,500 to $15,000 were awarded to 20 businesses through the Small Business Boost Project. City Council approved appropriating $200,000 for the program in April.

The need for such a program was identified as the city assisted businesses through a microenterprise program funded by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security – or Cares – Act through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Many businesses were ineligible for assistance by the fund because of restrictions governing the federal funds, according to Carmella Williams, microenterprise grant program director.

The grant program is different from the $200,000 fund the city established last month to assist downtown businesses following the May 28 natural gas explosion at the Realty Tower.

Grants of $15,000 each were awarded to Build Your Own Breakfast LLC, Unpainted Arizona LLC, YoGo Bikeshares LLC, DOPE Brands LLC, Savannah Joe’s LLC and McRoyal Industries LLC. 

Grants of $12,000 each were made to Full Faith Moving Services LLC and Jaxstubbs LLC.

An $11,000 grant was made to HH Brothers Enterprises LLC; a $10,000 grant went to Kickdrum Entertainment LLC; and $9,000 was given to Avalon Downtown.

The remaining funds were awarded to Centro Tre LLC, ATAP Records LLC, Santa Rosa LLC, Noble Creature Cask House and Bistro 1907 LLC ($7,500 each); Coze Coffee Bar LLC ($6,000); Yo! Crash LLC and DDVE Holdings LLC ($5,000 each); and G’s Chop Shop ($2,500).

In other business, the board approved entering into a professional services agreement with Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation to administer the $150,000 Market Street Corridor project.

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

Trumbull Neighborhood Partnership and the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. this week jointly introduced new staff positions created through the Strategic Partners Fellowship, which is supported by The Raymond John Wean Foundation. 

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

In 2022, the Raymond John Wean Foundation partnered with Trumbull Neighborhood Partnership and the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation to launch a fellowship cohort. 

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