Fort Myers Selected by HUD for Choice Neighborhoods Initiative Funds (Detroit, Cleveland, Camden too)

Florida Daily ^ | June 4th 2021 | Unknown

[Jacquerie]

Last week, U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Sec. Marcia Fudge announced that five communities, including one in the Sunshine State, have received a combined $160 million to redevelop severely distressed housing and spur comprehensive revitalization under the federal Choice Neighborhoods Initiative.

The Choice Neighborhoods initiative supports the revitalization of communities through an emphasis on linking housing improvements with comprehensive social services and physical neighborhood improvements. Local leaders, residents, and stakeholders, such as public housing authorities, cities, schools, police, business owners, nonprofits, and private developers, come together to create and implement a plan that revitalizes distressed HUD-assisted housing and addresses the challenges in the surrounding neighborhood. This year’s awardees were selected from a pool of 20 applications.

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; and

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.

The five awardees will create nearly 2,700 new mixed-income housing units as part of their efforts to revitalize their neighborhoods. Based on information provided in each community’s application, for every $1 in Choice Neighborhoods funding, the awardees will leverage an additional $10.60 in public and private resources for their project proposals.

[Starboard]

If you really want to see high end areas take a drive down to Naples. Better yet, go out on one of the tour boats to see Port Royal. It will make you feel poor.

You are right that there’s a big difference between Fort Myers proper and the surrounding county. We generally don’t venture north of Colonial too much. Its not really a safe area.

I guess its all relative but I don’t view the fort Myers area as being high end. Don’t get me wrong — its very nice and in fact one of the great things about it is that its NOT high end. The Fort Myers area is a comfortably pleasant place to live. We have friends there who can live anywhere they want but they prefer the laid back and unpretentious lifestyle of the area.

By the way several areas east of 75 are being rapidly built up. The area south of the RSW is exploding.

[I want the USA back]

Notice how they use nice names for their communist initiative. “Choice Neighborhoods.” “revitalizes distressed HUD-assisted housing”. If you’re a producer, expect to shell out more so the non-producers can send their kids to your school to assault your kids and to wail about racism.

[Oystir]

Yes, are they going to clean up blight N of Colonial? On the other hand Detroit has a ton of vacant property.

[rarestia]

I have friends out in Lehigh Acres. That area looks nothing like it did just 5 years ago. Immokalee is getting there too. I’ve seen it happen even up here in my rural part of Hernando county, and it’s getting worse every year, hell every month. There are parts of Brooksville that are “no go” for even the hardiest rednecks, and I grew up around there when it was nothing but cattle land.

Ft. Myers is a lot like Clearwater in Pinellas. It was a quiet bedroom community that has exploded into a tourist trap. The only parts of the Ft. Myers area that I would consider obscenely high class are the north parts of Sanibel and Captiva.

If you want more obscenity like that, I’d say Venice is the nearest mainland area.

[Rockingham]

Ft. Myers is about one third Black, with its county, Lee County, being a little over eight per cent Black. While Ft. Myers is arguably a purple city politically, Lee County as a whole is predominantly Republican. The Black population of Ft. Myers is relatively poor and does not seem especially devoted to educational attainment. Moving them into better housing will be a material benefit but will do little in itself to advance their ability to earn higher incomes or advance in life.