YNDC Gets $420K Grant for Revitalize Program

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – 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.”

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.