CLINTON ADMINISTRATION AWARDS $27.8 MILLION FOR PUBLIC HOUSING TO NORTH CAROLINA AND $498.3 MILLION NATIONWIDE

Winston-Salem will receive a $27.7 million revitalization grant, and Sanford will receive a $65,000 demolition grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Nationwide, Cuomo said HUD is awarding $498.3 million in grants this month to housing authorities in 27 cities under the HOPE VI program.

"HUD's HOPE VI grants are a step toward achieving my Administration's goal of helping people help themselves to improve their lives and their communities through hard work. By providing job training and improving the quality, management and safety of public housing we are giving hope to communities that have previously known despair," stated President Bill Clinton.

In announcing the first group of grants last week, Vice President Al Gore said: "We are transforming the worst public housing developments in America into outposts of opportunity that will help poor families build better lives and help revitalize America's cities.

Cuomo said the vast majority of the 3,400 public housing authorities around the nation do a good job providing safe and affordable housing to low-income families. However, some older public housing developments have deteriorated over the years, becoming magnets for crime and roadblocks to efforts to revitalize the surrounding area.

"We are creating a new concept of public housing for the new century," Cuomo said. "Besides removing blighted public housing from the urban landscape, we will breathe new life into cities by building safe neighborhoods that will attract more businesses, more jobs and more residents."

In addition, HUD is using the HOPE VI grants to help make welfare reform succeed, Cuomo said.

"Besides providing families in need with improved housing, we will help them move from welfare to work so they can climb out of poverty under their own power," Cuomo said.

"Congratulations to Executive Director Marie Roseboro and the entire Winston-Salem Housing Authority. Winston-Salem does an outstanding job providing home ownership opportunities to families in the area. I hope to continue this positive working relationship for the people of Winston-Salem," stated U.S. Senator Lauch Faircloth, chairman of a key Senate Banking subcommittee.

"I am proud that HUD recognizes the need that exists at Kimberly Park Terrace and the lives that will be positively impacted by this grant. The Winston-Salem Housing Authority and community deserve tremendous credit for their focus and commitment to this project - a dedication that is evidenced through the almost $28 million awarded today," said Congressman Richard Burr.

"Kimberly Park Terrace and Winston-Salem will be much better places to live as a result of this grant. The Winston-Salem Housing Authority and the Mayor did an outstanding job of making the case for the benefit this will have for the residents of Kimberly Park Terrace and the citizens of Winston Salem. I am glad HUD understood how much of a difference this investment will make," said Congressman Mel Watt.

The $ 27.7 million HUD grant to the Housing Authority of the City of Winston-Salem will be used to revitalize the Kimberly Park Terrace public housing development. The new community will be home to approximately 515 families. Of the existing 556 rental units, 205 will be demolished and the remaining structures will be redesigned into 332 units. In addition, the city will donate 12 acres of land where 80 single family units will be built for public housing residents seeking homeownership opportunities.

"We're excited about this great news!!! We're ready to get to work and promise to make all our citizens proud of this public investment," said Winston-Salem Mayor Martha S. Wood.

The $65,000 demolition grant to the Sanford Housing Authority will be used to tear down 13 of 75 units at the Garden Street Apartments public housing development. This partial demolition will help reduce the density of low-income families at this site.

Around the nation, 6,284 units of public housing will be built or modernized across the country with the new HOPE VI grants, creating successful residential communities that will help revitalize surrounding neighborhoods, Cuomo said.

In addition, 7,772 substandard public housing apartments will be demolished with the grants.

HUD's assistance will be tailored to carry out plans developed by local communities as part of President Clinton's overall urban policy.

Nationwide, the HOPE VI funding will pay for:

• Making physical improvements to existing public housing.

• Building new public housing.

• Demolishing some of the nation's most deteriorated public housing.

• Job training and employment programs to help public housing residents and other low-income people move from welfare to work.

• Fighting crime and drugs in public housing through President Clinton's "One Strike and You're Out" policy, which is keeping criminals from moving into public housing and evicting those already there.

• Improving the management of public housing.

• Helping working public housing residents and other poor working families become homeowners.

HUD has demolished about 30,000 units of the worst public housing and will demolish another 70,000 (for a total of 100,000) by the end of the year 2000 to change the physical landscape of public housing.

Despite these demolitions, the supply of affordable housing will increase under the Clinton Administration's transformation.

About 40,000 of the 100,000 public housing units being demolished are in such bad shape that they are vacant. As a result, only about 60,000 occupied apartments are being demolished. These apartments will be replaced by about 40,000 new units of public housing and by 61,000 rental vouchers that will allow poor families to rent housing in the private market.

As a result, the number of affordable housing opportunities supported by HUD will increase by about 40,000. Public housing residents displaced by demolitions are given the opportunity to receive vouchers or to move into new public housing.

It would cost more to rehabilitate the 100,000 worst units than it will to carry out plans to replace them with new public housing and vouchers.