Hogsett: Neighborhoods ‘Once Again On The Rise’
Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett at the the official ground breaking of the Sports Legends Experience at the Children's Museum.
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIndianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett is reporting more than $66 million in neighborhood investment in the city in 2017. He says the funding resulted in more than 300 new housing units and hundreds of job placement and training opportunities for low-to-moderate-income residents.
The mayor says the investment also played a part in 2,000 new job commitments and 1,400 retained jobs. The funding came from local, state and federal sources.
Hogsett says many of the city’s neighborhoods went unnoticed during the recent downtown boom, and says 2017’s spending focused on "turning back that tide." He says the efforts ranged from removing blighted properties to a "renewed push for place-making throughout our community."
Major housing projects in 2017 included $2 million to rehabilitate vacant and abandoned houses, $1.4 million to assist 70 low-income homeowners with necessary repairs through the Owner-Occupied Repair Program and nearly $2 million on projects involving senior rental housing units.
Hogsett says the investment also included money to help residents in those neighborhoods get training and find employment. That funding included nearly $1.5 million to help new or expanding small businesses with financing and $400,000 to EmployIndy for job training and placement services for nearly 700 underserved residents.
The city is also reporting a record-setting year for blight elimination, to the tune of 135 property sales and 155 demolitions of blighted houses expected.