About the East St. Louis Choice Neighborhood Plan
VISION: To develop a safe, inclusive, peaceful place where people can come together as a community.
PROJECT SUMMARY: Through the $350,000 Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grant, Urban Strategies, Inc. and the Housing Authority of the City of East St. Louis will work with local residents and a variety of community stakeholders – including nonprofits, faith-based organizations, institutions of higher education, supportive services agencies, businesses, and others – to create a forward-looking Transformation Plan. Through this planning process, community members and stakeholders will identify local assets, discuss current challenges, and create a vision for the future. These efforts will create an integrated and holistic plan to revitalize Samuel Gompers Homes, improve neighborhood safety, and bolster education, health, and employment outcomes for families.
CHOICE NEIGHBORHOOD GOALS: Choice Neighborhoods is designed to address struggling neighborhoods with distressed public housing or HUD-assisted housing through a comprehensive approach to neighborhood transformation. Local leaders, residents, and other stakeholders, such as public housing authorities, cities, schools, police, business owners, nonprofits, and private developers, come together to create a plan that transforms distressed HUD housing and addresses the challenges in the surrounding neighborhood. The program helps communities transform neighborhoods by revitalizing severely distressed public and/or assisted housing and investing and leveraging investments in well-functioning services, high quality public schools and education programs, high quality early learning programs and services, crime prevention strategies, public assets, public transportation, and improved access to jobs. 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 outcomes of households living in the target housing related to employment and income, health, and children’s education.
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.
Meet the Partners
