HUD Awards $500,000 Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grant

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) awarded a $500,000 planning grant to the Housing Authority of the City of Goldsboro (HACG) and the City of Goldsboro. This community award is designed to stimulate high-quality, affordable housing and economic development in the West Haven community.

HUD received 31 applications for the FY 2022 Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grants competition from across the nation and this grant is one of 9 awards totaling $4,409,000 funded through HUD's Choice Neighborhoods Initiative, which helps local leaders craft comprehensive, homegrown plans to revitalize and transform neighborhoods across the country.

HUD's Choice Neighborhoods Initiative promotes a comprehensive approach to transforming neighborhoods struggling to address the interconnected challenges of distressed housing, inadequate schools, poor health, high crime, and lack of capital.

"The Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grant is a game changer for the residents of West Haven and the surrounding community, this proves, that when we as a community work together, we can accomplish great things," said HACG Chief Executive Officer Anthony Goodson Jr.

Choice Neighborhoods is HUD's signature place-based initiative and its vision builds on the work that has been done by the Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative, an interagency partnership between HUD, the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Justice, and Treasury, since 2009.

Choice Neighborhoods is focused on three core goals:

• Housing: Replace distressed public and assisted housing with high-quality mixed-income housing that is well managed and responsive to the needs of the surrounding neighborhood.
• People: Improve educational outcomes and intergenerational mobility for youth with services and supports delivered directly to youth and their families.
• Neighborhood: Create the conditions necessary for public and private reinvestment in distressed neighborhoods to offer the kinds of amenities and assets, including safety, good schools, and commercial activity, that are important to families' choices about their community.

HACG will partner with the City of Goldsboro, local nonprofits, businesses, and community stakeholders to create a plan to revitalize housing and address challenges in reconnecting the surrounding neighborhood. This Transformation plan is intended to become the guiding document for the revitalization of the public and/or assisted housing units while simultaneously directing the transformation of the surrounding neighborhood and outlining the steps necessary to create positive outcomes for families within the West Haven community.