CUOMO ANNOUNCES $25.7 MILLION GRANT TO DENVER TO TRANSFORM PUBLIC HOUSING AND HELP RESIDENTS GET JOBS

DENVER - Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo today presented Denver with a $25.7 million grant as part of a nationwide program that is replacing decaying public housing with new housing and helping residents get education, training and jobs to become self-sufficient.

"This program is about much more than rebuilding housing," Cuomo said. "It's about giving public housing residents the chance to rebuild their lives. We're creating a new vision for public housing. We will replace slums that trapped families in poverty and dependence with attractive new communities that will be gateways to jobs, opportunity and self-sufficiency."

Cuomo made the announcement of the grant to Denver at a news conference with Mayor Wellington Webb and local housing leaders.

Cuomo said the grant to Denver will be used to revitalize the Curtis Park and Arapahoe Courts public housing developments. The funds will help create 550 new housing units at the sites, and demolish 286 deteriorated units of public housing.

In addition, the grant to Denver will help 450 families living at Curtis Park and Arapahoe Courts get jobs and become self-sufficient by providing them with job training, education, child care, transportation and counseling services. Nationally, HUD funds will be used to help about 10,000 families get jobs and become self-sufficient.

Mayor Webb said: "This is Denver's year of the Neighborhood. There could be no better beginning for it than today's announcement by Secretary Cuomo. HOPE VI represents a real opportunity for Denver, HUD and our partners to address current housing problems and to advance a vision for the future. Our current economic good times have not reached all of our citizens. Now is the time to invest in the areas of greatest needs."

Congresswoman Diana DeGette said: "Revitalizing Curtis Park Homes and Arapahoe Courts will bring renewed vitality to Denver's inner city community. The new housing to be created by the HOPE VI grant money will provide quality, safe and affordable housing units to a broad range of people."

HUD is awarding a total of $507 million in highly competitive grants to 22 cities under the public housing transformation program known as HOPE VI, Cuomo said, and is replacing more occupied units of low-income housing in the 22 cities than are being demolished. The 22 cities will demolish about 7,000 units of severely distressed public housing that are occupied, and another 3,400 units that are vacant because of their extremely poor condition. Rehabilitating the substandard units would cost more than tearing them down.

The 7,000 occupied and 3,400 vacant units of public housing being demolished in the 22 cities will be replaced by about 12,100 units of housing - including about 6,800 units of new public housing, 3,300 units of new privately owned low-income rental housing, and about 2,000 units that will be sold for homeownership.

In Denver, the new units being built will be made up of 261 units of low-rise public housing, 73 units of privately-owned low-income housing financed with the help of the federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, 137 non-subsidized rental units, and 79 units of market-rate housing. One of the goals of the HUD assistance is to create new mixed-income neighborhoods where public housing residents live alongside residents of unsubsidized housing.

HUD will also help public housing residents who get jobs in Denver to buy 126 new public housing units. Nationally, about 1,200 public housing units will be made available for homeownership by public housing residents.

In Denver, development will take place in partnership with Integral/Legg Mason.

Denver previously received a HOPE VI grant from HUD for $26.5 million for the Quigg Newton Homes development in 1994 and a $400,000 planning grant for Curtis Park Homes in 1995.

Housing authorities receiving the new round of $507 million in HUD grants plan to use $108 million of the assistance to hire public housing residents to work on the revitalization of their own developments. The jobs will provide paychecks and teach residents valuable job skills.

On top of this, housing authorities will use HUD funds to make loans and provide other assistance to public housing residents to help them start small businesses - such as lawn care, catering and cleaning services - that are expected to create another 400 jobs for public housing residents in the 22 cities.

HUD and housing authorities will also partner with schools near public housing to help children from public housing families do better in school to prepare them for self-sufficiency as adults.

In addition to the grant to Denver, HUD today announced HOPE VI grants to Los Angeles for $23 million and Oakland, CA for $12.7 million.

HUD's investment of $507 million in public housing transformation grants this year is expected to help generate a record $1.15 billion in additional investment in housing and jobs programs at public housing developments - including $854.1 million in private funds and $300.2 million in other government funds.

This year, every dollar HUD is investing in public housing transformation is generating a record high average of $2.28 in other investment - far more than the 31 cents in other investment the transformation program generated when it began in 1993.

HUD will pay temporary relocation costs for residents whose apartments are being demolished. Relocated residents of a development will be given the first opportunity to move back to the newly constructed units at the site, or will be given rental assistance vouchers that will subsidize their rents in privately owned apartments if they choose not to return to public housing.

In addition, relocated residents receiving rental assistance vouchers will be given the same job training and other services that will be offered to people living in the replacement public housing, to help them get jobs and become self-sufficient.

All new units being built will conform to guidelines of HUD's Healthy Homes Initiative, which will ensure that homes incorporate safeguards to protect residents against hazards such as lead poisoning, fire, carbon monoxide and radon.

The 22 cities receiving grants were selected in a competition involving 101 cities that submitted applications requesting a total of $1.95 billion in grants. Cities were selected based on a checklist of criteria measuring the effectiveness of their public housing revitalization plans.

Under the Clinton Administration, HUD is carrying out the most dramatic transformation of public housing since the public housing program was created in 1937 by President Franklin Roosevelt, Cuomo said.

HUD has approved the construction of 33,000 units of new public housing since 1993 and has demolished about 28,000 units of the worst public housing in the nation under HOPE VI. Residents of demolished housing have moved into new public housing or received rental assistance vouchers under the Section 8 program to subsidize their rents in privately owned apartments.

HUD's assistance to Denver will be tailored to carry out plans developed locally. Each of the 22 local communities receiving grants developed its own revitalization program under a HUD policy that gives them great flexibility to come up with plans to meet their own special needs.

The HOPE VI program has five key objectives:

• Changing the physical shape of public housing by demolishing the worst public housing developments - high-rises and barracks-style apartments - and replacing them with garden-style apartments or townhouses that become part of their surrounding communities.

• Reducing concentrations of poverty by encouraging a greater income mix among public housing residents and by encouraging working families to move into public housing and into new market-rate housing being built as part of the neighborhoods where public housing is located.

• Establishing support services - such as education and training programs, child care services, transportation services and counseling - to help public housing residents get and keep jobs.

• Establishing and enforcing high standards of personal and community responsibility by barring drug dealers and other criminals from moving into public housing and evicting those already there, under President Clinton's One Strike and You're Out policy and through other anti-crime programs as well.

• Forging broad-based partnerships to involve public housing residents, state and local government officials, the private sector, non-profit groups and the community at large in planning and implementing improvements in public housing developments.

There are about 1.2 million units of public housing around the nation, where about 2.8 million people live. The median annual income of households in public housing is $6,939. A total of 46 percent of households are made up of families with children, another 30 percent house senior citizens, and 11 percent are home to people with disabilities.