Thrusday, January 14, 1999
$3M to Cincinnati inner city
Federal funds for 'empowerment'
BY LISA DONOVAN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
It's less than Cincinnati anticipated, but the federal government is expected to cut a $3 million check that will help inner-city neighborhoods shrink unemployment and aid business and housing development.
Vice President Al Gore announced Wednesday that Cincinnati was among 20 designated “empowerment zones” that will share at least $55 million in federal grants and $2.2 billion in tax-exempt bonds for rebuilding poor communities.
The city had applied for a $100 million grant — $10 million over 10 years — but Congress appropriated only $3 million for the first year. The Clinton administration will push Congress to approve an additional $1.6 billion in federal grants to be spread out over 10 years.
The city must decide where the ax will fall or whether it can delay some projects while it lobbies Congress for more money.
“We designed our budget for $10 million for the first year, so obviously we're going to have to revise the budget,” said Tim Sharp, special assistant to City Manager John Shirey and one of the coordinators of the empowerment zone application.
In the city's application for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) grant, for example, the city had estimated it would spend $750,000 to $1 million annually to staff operations.
The application also detailed projects it wanted to launch in the first two years of the 10-year program, including:
• Leasing assistance to help 20 families obtain cars.
• 2,000 home visits and community contacts by nurses, including those employed through the city's health department. The nurses would visit pregnant women, infants, children and families at risk for child abuse, teen pregnancy and infant mortality.
The HUD grant is meant to be seed money to draw corpo rate and private donors. City officials estimate they leveraged $2.2 billion over 10 years in private and public donations, ranging from pledge of jobs to employment training programs. The city pledged to give $208 million for the program.
The nine communities that make up the city's empowerment zone are Avondale, Clifton-Fairview Heights, Corryville, Evanston, Mount Auburn, Over-the-Rhine, Queensgate, Walnut Hills and the West End.
President Clinton initiated the empowerment zone program in 1994 as a means of kick-starting cities such as Cincinnati, which has the 12th-highest poverty rate among the 75 largest cities, and the ninth-lowest home ownership rate.
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