NEWPORT NEWS, Va. - Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson joined Mayor McKinley Price to announce that three communities across the country, including Newport News and Norfolk, will receive a combined $85 million in grants.
According to a release from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Newport News and Norfolk will receive a combined $60 million, with $30 million going towards Newport News' Marshall-Ridley Neighborhood and $30 million going towards Norfolk's St. Paul's area.
"HUD's work is about more than just housing those in need; we also have a responsibility to help create thriving communities where residents can grow and flourish," Carson said. "The grants we are announcing today will leverage additional funds to revitalize entire neighborhoods and create more opportunities for those who live there."
Last year, Carson visited Norfolk to tour areas of the city that could qualify as Opportunity Zones, designed to encourage investment in low-income urban and rural communities across the country. Newport News was a finalist in the running to receive a grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development that year.
The grant program focuses on three core goals:
- Replacing distressed public and assisted housing with high-quality, mixed-income housing;
- Improving outcomes of households living in the target housing related to employment and income, health and children's education;
- And creating the conditions necessary for public and private reinvestment in distressed neighborhoods to offer the kinds of amenities and assets that are important to families' choices about their community.
A total of 988 public housing units will be replaced with 1,730 new mixed-income, mixed-use housing units. Housing choice vouchers will be given to households impacted by the replacement.
For every $1 in funding they receive, the awardees and their partners will leverage an additional $7.30 in public and private funding for their project proposals, bringing in an expected total of $620.5 million.
The remaining $25 million will go towards the North 30th Street Corridor in Omaha, Nebraska.
