The Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage Finance Corporation is handing out $300,000 statewide to fund planning efforts for its “Neighborhood Revitalization Program.” Municipal governments and community groups may be awarded up to $50,000 if their proposals are one of at least six selected.
The proposals — due August 18 — are to be different than previous programs in the sense that Rhode Island Housing (as RIHMFC now calls itself) is calling for comprehensive five-year plans, rather than quicker project bases like the more recent Friendship/Pine and Providence/Tanner revitalizations.
This is not to say that these other projects have not been successful. Rhode Island Housing’s deputy director for policy and programs, Thom Deller, just sees the need for even greater long-term involvement.
“They’re great for the 20 houses they fix,” said Deller about previous project bases, “but unless anybody is concentrating on it, it’s hard to revitalize a neighborhood.”
He said Rhode Island Housing is trying to encourage communities to think more globally.
“This is the first time we’ve called for a neighborhood revitalization plan,” he said. “We really wanted to look beyond a project base for greater positive impact.”
With at least 30 written proposals submitted already, Rhode Island Housing is looking to other groups for assistance. A self-supporting corporation which receives no state tax dollars, the organization is looking to places like the Annie E. Casey Foundation of Baltimore, the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation, and the Local Initiative Support Corporation for help, Deller said.
Barbara Fields Karlin, senior program director for Rhode Island Local Initiative Support Corporation (LISC), said the organization works with community development corporations to transform distressed neighborhoods into healthy communities.
“We partner with Rhode Island Housing on a lot of work in the community,” Karlin said.
She said this program is more efficient than most because with time, as houses come in, and the quality of life improves, so will the businesses.
”We’ll see a pizza shop opening, a Laundromat, and even day care centers opening as people get off welfare and start going to work,” she said. “People are always looking for the immediate response, but this is a business plan for the community.”
Karlin said the benefits of taking time include answering the long-term questions important to revitalizing a neighborhood such as, what should happen, and what resources are needed.
”Neighborhood redevelopment makes sense for all of us,” she said. “The leading corporations understand that.”
A sampling of the private sector corporations making investments through tax credits include Hasbro, Textron, CVS, FleetBoston, Fidelity Investments, Citizens and Sovereign Bank.
Manuel Vales, vice president of commercial real estate lending for Sovereign Bank is a LISC board member. He said LISC acts as a conduit to revitalization, and that for it to work, there has to be the cooperation of government and business.
”Most of the deals are made of multiple components of financing,” he said, “and there is a shrinking pool of dollars.”
Vales said the corporations have tried to step in to fill the void of constricted government funding, but that there are different layers of debt that the corporations cannot really fill entirely. What LISC does is to bring in financing in the form of a match.
As for the financing of this particular program though, Deller said the only money going into the grants is Rhode Island Housing money.
”We were preparing our budget (for 2000), and we decided to set aside this money for planning,” said Deller.
For the latest meeting for the proposals, which happened last Tuesday, July 11, Deller said they had 51 people signed up to speak about their plans.
”They come from Burrillville to Westerly to Newport,” said Deller. “So I think we’ve gotten the attention of a lot of people throughout the state.”
