STRUTHERS, Ohio – The Mahoning County Land Bank and the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. have partnered to construct their first new home outside Youngstown’s city limits, expanding their reach to Struthers.
“We have been doing some work in Struthers for some time, primarily doing repair projects on occupied homes,” said Ian Beniston, executive director of YNDC. “We were definitely interested when we were able to partner with the land bank to bring this together.”
Beniston, along with Debora Flora, land bank executive director, and Mayor Catherine Cercone Miller, hosted a groundbreaking ceremony to mark the start of construction work on the new house at 42 E. Wilson St.
“It is a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house and will have an open concept – kitchen, living area, front porch, a two-car detached garage in the back,” Beniston said. The house will be approximately 1,400 square feet.
The site is a lot where another house once stood, Beniston noted. “We have to use these infill lots, which are precious to us, particularly in a community like Struthers, which is largely built out,” he said. “These projects for us are about improving the standards of maintenance, showing more investment in the neighborhood and continually incrementally building on that.”
The project was funded through the second round of the Welcome Home Ohio program, Flora said. The first round helped fund the construction of six new houses on Mineral Springs Avenue and six additional rehab projects.
This is the first project funded with a portion of the second round award, Flora said, which totaled $5 million. “That is going a long way toward the construction of 19 new houses in this round,” she said.
While some of those houses will be built in Youngstown, others are slated for Sebring, Campbell and Struthers, Flora said. “We’re moving beyond Youngstown,” she said.
Flora said the land bank has regularly engaged with the city of Struthers on other home construction projects outside of YNDC.
The city was awarded its own Welcome Home grant to help with the development of modular housing within the community, and some of those sites were acquired through the county’s land bank. The land bank is also engaged in additional demolition work in Struthers, she said.
Miller said the city has been working with YNDC since 2020 to identify vacant parcels that present new construction opportunities. “We don’t have a lot of land, but we do have a lot of vacant lots that we’ve been trying to put houses on,” she said. “This is something we’ve been working on for so long, and we are so very excited to have this.”
Flora thanked the work of the state delegation and added that the Welcome Home program is vital to making these projects happen, especially at such a critical time in the Mahoning Valley and Ohio where affordable housing continues to be a major concern.
“To our delegation and state legislators who continue to support what we are doing and our partner land banks are doing, we say thank you,” Flora said. “We want you to pass the biennial budget with everything intact, because it will mean many more good things in Mahoning County.”
Pictured at top: From left are Debora Flora, Ian Beniston and Mayor Catherine Cercone Miller.