Neighborhoods

The first Better Block event in Youngstown was held on Saturday, September 26th, on Mahoning Avenue on the West Side.

The street was completely transformed for the day with bike lanes, street trees, outdoor seating, live music, a farmer's market, a cafe, and two art galleries.

The goal of the event, according to its organizers, the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation, was to show the potential of Mahoning Avenue, highlight local artists and businesses, and spur more permanent improvements in the future.

More Better Block events will be held on the north, south, and east sides of Youngstown. The NOMA Better Block will take place on Friday, October 2 and Saturday, October 3. The Midlothian Better Block will take place on Sunday, October 25, and a Better Block will be planned for the East Side in the spring of 2016.

In describing the first Better Block in Youngstown, community organizer and Defend Youngstown founder, Phil Kidd had this to say:

"It was a great success. Mahoning Avenue is like a highway running through the heart of the West Side. There are no bike lanes or even any green space on the sidewalks for 2 or 3 miles.

"Generally speaking, I think people simply liked the fact that it was a pedestrian-friendly environment. There were also a few popular vendors, such as World Cafe which offered free crepes (with about 15 different fillings) in an vacant storefront, a new iced coffee vendor as well as homemade cotton candy by the Rocky Ridge Neighborhood Association."

The non-profit neighborhood group received a $32,000 grant from the Swanston Children's Fund for two Better Blocks this year and two in 2016.

The purpose of Better Blocks is to "promote complete streets urban redevelopment by creating demonstration projects to engage the public," according to The Better Block, an organization lead by Dallas native, Jason Roberts, who started doing pop up complete streets in his Oak Cliff, Dallas neighborhood before branching out to do them as a national consultant.

Roberts' example has inspired hundreds of Better Blocks, from Boston to Cleveland's 2012 Pop Up Rockwell. Earlier this spring, he worked with City of Akron and regional transportation officials at Akron Metropolitan Planning Study (AMATS) on a Better Block in that city's North Hill area.

Generally, Better Blocks work with low-cost or dumpster-dive materials like shipping palettes which, with some minor modifications and paint, can become street furniture for temporary sidewalk cafes. Pop up vendors are often found to fill vacant or underused commercial spots, and white duct tape creates crosswalks or bike lanes. Taken together, it helps raise awareness of a district and, in some cases, lead to more permanent revitalization efforts.

To view the full coverage, click here.

An AmeriCorps NCCC (National Civilian Community Corps) team is serving with Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation (YNDC) from September 23 to November 6.

The team is aiding in projects improving Youngstown’s neighborhood decay from its significant population decrease and the economic decline of its steel industry.

The NCCC team of nine from the North Central Region campus of Vinton, Iowa is collaborating with YNDC staff and community groups to board, clean, and repair at least 35 vacant, blighted properties to make neighborhoods more inhabitable. The team is measuring, cutting, painting and hanging boards, removing debris, and landscaping vacant properties and lots.

Through their service, NCCC members are reducing the proliferation of vacant properties and lots that total nearly three times the national average. Reducing vacant properties reduces health and safety risks posed to neighbors and children, encourages reinvestment, and discourages criminal activity and vandalism.

NCCC member and New Hampshire native, Regan Naughton asserts, “I hope to take what I learn from removing Youngstown’s blight and showing outsiders its potential with me for the rest of my life.”

The Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation represents a multifaceted effort to promote reinvestment in neighborhoods throughout Youngstown. YNDC seeks to improve Youngstown’s quality of life by offering numerous programming and services: vacant land reuse, urban agriculture, demolition, home rehabilitation and repair, homeownership development, job training, economic development, community engagement, volunteer workdays, and neighborhood planning.

The AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC) and its FEMA Corps units engage 2,800 young Americans in a full-time, 10-month commitment to service each year. AmeriCorps NCCC members address critical needs related to natural and other disasters, infrastructure improvement, environmental stewardship and conservation, and urban and rural development; FEMA Corps members are solely dedicated to disaster preparedness, mitigation, response and recovery work. The programs are administered by the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS). CNCS is the federal agency that engages more than five million Americans in service through its AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, Social Innovation Fund, and Volunteer Generation Fund programs, and leads President's national call to service initiative, United We Serve.

For more information, visit www.nationalservice.gov.

Despite the near constant drizzle, the sounds of hedge trimmers, lawn mowers and other equipment filled a south side Youngstown neighborhood Monday morning.

A team of young adults are trying to eliminate blight – one property at a time.

AmeriCorps NCCC member Spencer Liechty said the diverse group hails from many locations from California to Washington, D.C. They arrived in Youngstown last week and will be working with the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation (YNDC).

Volunteers will be cleaning up vacant and abandoned properties. One section targeted Monday was in the Idora neighborhood.

“Some of the weeds get overgrown. Some of the vacant lots get out control and it just doesn’t look great,” Liechty said. “We are here to kind of clean up the neighborhood.”

The group ranges in age between18 and 24. Regan Naughton is a recent high school graduate from New Hampshire who said she wanted something more than just an education.

“A lot of my friends were going straight to college, and I wasn’t a perfect fit for college yet. This was to help me gain the experience from college. I got to experience helping people and seeing communities grow in a good way,” Naughton said.

Neighbor Carmen Montgomery says she’s glad to see YNDC and the AmeriCorps workers targeting a house nearby. The owner died two years ago and the house has set empty ever since.

“You see what they are doing? They are cleaning it up,” Montgomery said.

The AmeriCorps members will be in the area through early November targeting 50 lots to be cleaned up.

To view the full coverage, click here.

Despite the near constant drizzle, the sounds of hedge trimmers, lawn mowers and other equipment filled a south side Youngstown neighborhood Monday morning.

A team of young adults are trying to eliminate blight – one property at a time.

AmeriCorps NCCC member Spencer Liechty said the diverse group hails from many locations from California to Washington, D.C. They arrived in Youngstown last week and will be working with the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation (YNDC).

Volunteers will be cleaning up vacant and abandoned properties. One section targeted Monday was in the Idora neighborhood.

“Some of the weeds get overgrown. Some of the vacant lots get out control and it just doesn’t look great,” Liechty said. “We are here to kind of clean up the neighborhood.”

The group ranges in age between18 and 24. Regan Naughton is a recent high school graduate from New Hampshire who said she wanted something more than just an education.

“A lot of my friends were going straight to college, and I wasn’t a perfect fit for college yet. This was to help me gain the experience from college. I got to experience helping people and seeing communities grow in a good way,” Naughton said.

Neighbor Carmen Montgomery says she’s glad to see YNDC and the AmeriCorps workers targeting a house nearby. The owner died two years ago and the house has set empty ever since.

“You see what they are doing? They are cleaning it up,” Montgomery said.

The AmeriCorps members will be in the area through early November targeting 50 lots to be cleaned up.

To view the full coverage, click here.

If you happened to drive down Mahoning Avenue on Saturday, you were probably confused.

You weren’t hallucinating. There were people on the streets — lots of them. There were pop-up art galleries, a farmer’s market and street musicians.

It was a Better Block event — a demonstration of what a walkable, mixed-use commercial district would look like on Mahoning Avenue — and it was a lot of fun.

Last week, the latest in a long line of citywide economic development plans was released by the city and Youngstown State University’s Center for Urban Research and Studies.

It outlined a variety of development goals that were familiar and, more or less, common sense: encourage entrepreneurship, promote growth, increase economic development, etc. The valuable goals of training the workforce to fill existing jobs and creating a consortium of firmly established city institutions were focused on.

A unique aspect of the plan was the identification of opportunity sites along the city’s corridors. The mayor said it was a valuable thing to have on paper.

The revitalization of downtown Youngstown is well established. There are still empty storefronts and abandoned buildings, but it’s reached the point where development is likely to continue on its own.

Increasing investment in the neighborhoods and focusing on the corridors is the next logical step.

Downtown can thrive, but for the city to truly prosper, people need to live here. It’s great that YSU, the Youngstown Business Incubator and local hospitals are employing hundreds of people, but as long as they’re commuting in from suburban homes in Austintown and Poland, the neighborhoods surrounding the center city are going to continue to deteriorate.

The Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation has done yeoman’s work fighting blight and restoring property values in targeted neighborhoods, but there’s still a lot of work to be done.

It’s a classic chicken and egg problem, but for people to be excited about living in the Garden District, Crandall Park or Brownlee Woods, there needs to be commercial development along Mahoning, Belmont and South Avenues.

Millennials continually report a desire to live in cities, but a recent survey by the Urban Land Institute revealed many are living in city neighborhoods or dense mixed-use suburbs.

The opportunities are there in Youngstown; we just need to make it happen.

Holding more events like Better Block is a good start. It’s become commonplace to see people engage with downtown with events like Silly Science Sunday and Federal Frenzy. Seeing people activate neighborhood corridors is novel and transporting, and it needs to happen more frequently.

Another interesting aspect of the citywide economic development plan was a marketing campaign that brands Youngstown as the City of You that celebrates the ease with which people make things happen here. You can start an incubator in Oak Hill or start showing foreign films downtown without much trouble. It’s been done.

If that self-actualization starts happening along corridors where housing and commercial space are currently undervalued, we could see the birth of diverse communities in vibrant neighborhoods.

It just requires some will and effort. Get out there and make Mahoning Avenue the Corridor of You.

To view the full coverage, click here.

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

On Thursday, September 17th, Denise Clontz, a first-time homebuyer, purchased ahome revitalized by YNDC in the Historic Indian Village neighborhood onYoungstown's South Side.

Denise participated in one of YNDC's homebuyer workshops last fall before enrolling in the organization's HUD-approved housing counseling program to prepare for homeownership. The 4-bedroom, 1.5 bathroom brick home features a large living room with fireplace, formal dining room, kitchen with granite counter tops and attached dinette, and detached 2-car garage. The home's recent updates include new roof, gutters and downspouts, ceramic tile, hardwood floors, fresh paint, furnace, and hot water tank.

The home next door, 3215 Neosho Road, has also been revitalized by YNDC, and is available for purchase to qualified buyers for $65,000.

Wednesdsay, September 30, 2015

The $420,000 Health and Human Services Community Economic Development grant will enable YNDC’s REVITALIZE Project to grow and further develop a viable business model that both figuratively and literally builds people and neighborhoods in the City of Youngstown.

For the REVITALIZE depth (people) strategy, YNDC will remove both the personal and community barriers that prevent Youngstown residents with low-income from obtaining and holding jobs and successful careers by providing case management and linking employees to supportive services through community partnerships, including legal assistance, family and financial counseling, transportation, and other critical services. For the REVITALIZE breadth (pipeline) strategy, YNDC will build a pipeline of work across a range of skills and construction related activities in to improve Youngstown neighborhoods, including the rehabilitation of vacant housing and other stabilization activities.

A total of $420,000 in HHS CED funds will be used to increase the scale and impact of the existing REVITALIZE program by hiring of an additional Construction Site Supervisor/Trainer to allow for the creation of an additional construction team, a Program Coordinator/Case Manager to provide case management and service coordination to low-income employees, and purchasing additional equipment and supplies needed to increase the volume of work to a level that will sustain 21 new construction team members, creating a total of 23 jobs over a three year period.

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

YNDC is proud to announce the publishing of its 3rd quarterly performance report of 2015!

The performance report highlights the work of YNDC over the 3rd quarter. An electronic copy can be downloaded below.

The Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. will receive $420,000 from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Community Economic Development Opportunity for its neighborhood stabilization program, U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Howland, D-13th, announced.

The program uses effective strategies developed by YNDC to stabilize neighborhoods through strategic reinvestment, Ryan said Wednesday.

Repurposing vacant property and engaging and employing residents in the process have created dozens of jobs and have turned formerly distressed neighborhoods into communities where opportunity and choice now exist, he said.

“Over the last five years, this project has proved to be effective in addressing our vacant-property crisis,” Ryan said. “Through this funding, YNDC will be able to continue to repurpose vacant property, strengthen the housing market and improve quality of life in neighborhoods across Youngstown – all while creating jobs in the [Mahoning] Valley.”

In April, Ryan voiced his support for this program and urged the HHS to give this project strong consideration and to approve funding.

According to its website, YNDC is a multifaceted neighborhood development organization launched in 2009 in partnership with the city of Youngstown and The Raymond John Wean Foundation “to catalyze strategic neighborhood reinvestment in neighborhoods throughout the city.”

To read the full story at Vindy.com, click here.

A federal grant will allow Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. to rehabilitate more houses and hire more people to do the work, the organization’s executive director says.

U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan announced the $420,000 grant to YNDC Wednesday.

YNDC applied for the grant, from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Community Economic Development Opportunity funds, for its Revitalize project in April, said Ian Beniston, YNDC’s executive director.

The funds will be used specifically to increase YNDC’s construction operation and “increase the scale” of the work it does, Beniston said.

“We do quite a bit of our own construction so this will enable us to buy additional equipment and thereby hire additional people and do more work,” he said. “A larger number of houses will ultimately be rehabilitated and more basic neighborhood stabilization activity will take place.”

In an April 8 letter to HHS supporting the grant, Ryan said the Revitalize project uses “effective strategies developed by YNDC and its partners that brings these strategies to a scale that will reduce vacancy, improve quality of life, and strengthen housing markets in neighborhoods” across Youngstown.

Since its inception five years ago, YNDC’s “comprehensive model of neighborhood stabilization” has created “dozens of jobs” and “turned formerly distressed neighborhoods into communities where opportunity and choice” exist, the congressman continued. If funded, “the Revitalize project will serve as a model that communities across the nation can use to transform vacant property into economic opportunity.”

To view full coverage, click here.