UpDate - Vol. 15, No. 7, Page 1
October 12, 1995
Federal grants to support community development
Two federal grants to the University will mean up to $2.4 million
over the next three years for community development projects in
Wilmington's Enterprise Community.
University President David P. Roselle announced the awards Oct. 5
at a news conference at Curlett Place, an affordable housing
initiative in Wilmington. He was joined at the announcement by
Delaware Gov. Thomas R. Carper, Wilmington Mayor James H. Sills Jr.
and a number of state, city, private sector and nonprofit partners.
Both grants expand efforts of the College of Urban Affair and
Public Policy's Center for Community Development to support community
development, particularly within Wilmington's Enterprise Community,
which is aimed at revitalizing economically distressed areas and
empowering people by inspiring them to work together to create jobs
and opportunities for citizens.
Wilmington was one of 65 cities nationwide designed by President
Bill Clinton as an Enterprise Community, and its boundaries encompass
approximately 21,000 residents and 40 percent of the city's land area.
The Community Outreach Partnership Grant of $500,000 over two
years from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
will support the establishment of a Community Development Resource
Center, to be located within the Enterprise Community. This grant will
be matched by an additional $500,000 of in-kind support from the
University in the form of faculty, staff and graduate student time.
The center will provide information, training, technical assistance
and funding support to organizations located in or serving the
residents of the Enterprise Community.
A second grant of up to $1 million over three years from the U.S.
Department of Education (DOE) will support a Wilmington location for
the successful Housing Capacity Building Program (HCBP), a partnership
among the UD Center for Community Development, the Delaware State
Housing Authority (DSHA) and the Delaware Community Foundation (DCF).
The HCBP provides services and funding assistance to organizations
working to increase the availability of affordable housing and related
social services.
Seventy-five percent of the federal dollars, awarded under Title
XI of the DOE's Urban Community Service Program, will be focused on
the Enterprise Community and matched with $200,000 of in-kind
University resources and $130,000 in collective resources from the
DSHA and the DCF. The HCBP partnership is committed to raising an
additional $100,000 over the next three years to support technical
assistance services. The HCBP already has an office in Dover.
"Coupled with the federal funds," Roselle said, "we are talking
about the prospect of applying more than $2.4 million to enhance the
ability of government and nonprofit agencies to address social and
economic problems facing low-income neighborhoods, principally in
Wilmington's Enterprise Community, but including other parts of the
city, county and state as well. No less important than the dollar
figure is the number of important linkages that are being made in this
Enterprise Community strategy."
Roselle also pointed out that "all of this enhanced activity is
the result of long-standing efforts by the University, working
collaboratively with the city of Wilmington, the Delaware State
Housing Authority, the Delaware Community Foundation, the Delaware
Association of Nonprofit Agencies and the Catalyst Project, as well as
neighborhood and community groups. Mayor Sills, a longtime faculty
member in our College of Urban Affairs and Public Policy, brought with
him into office a rich knowledge of the resources and talents of his
colleagues in the college, and working together they have been able to
implement a number of community development programs and projects.
"Matching this creativity," Roselle said, "is a determination to
accomplish. For example, three years ago when the Center for Community
Development applied for an earlier round of the DOE grant, the
Delaware Community Foundation worked with the center to raise the
local match. When the federal money did not come through at that time,
we were able to proceed anyway, using the local match to establish a
technical assistance pool, which has been administered jointly by the
center, the foundation and the State Housing Authority. And for
several years now, the center, the Delaware Association of Nonprofit
Agencies and Catalyst have been working on the idea of a collaborative
resource center. It is precisely this combination of enterprise and
teamwork that has made today's news possible."
Gov. Carper commended the University of Delaware's efforts to
support the Housing Capacity Building Program, noting that it is "the
first of its kind in Delaware. Never before has the Delaware State
Housing Authority been more effectively strengthening other affordable
housing providers statewide. The bottom line is that together we are
making it easier for our low-income neighbors to have stable and
affordable homes in which to live and raise a family."
Mayor Sills said, "Empowering neighborhoods is a top priority of
my administration, and this innovative partnership effort to enhance
our Enterprise Community strategy is a wonderful complement to our
recent and ongoing downtown revitalization. The Community Outreach
Partnership Grant will provide key professional resources to our
nonprofit groups involved in developing their organizations to better
serve our residents, and the Housing Capacity Building Program also
complements the efforts of our Real Estate and Housing Department's
affordable housing initiatives."
Jim Walker, executive director of the Enterprise Community,
added, "This program is just the first major example of the Enterprise
Community's capability to leverage additional resources to support
this unique 10-year partnership for community revitalization among the
city, state, community and the private sector. It is fitting that the
first new grants targeted for the Enterprise Community focus on
empowering the local community to help itself. This is the cornerstone
of the Enterprise Community Strategy. Government can do a lot, but
long-term revitalization of our communities can only happen when
government works in partnership with a community empowered to help
itself."
Larry Carson, executive of Community Housing Inc., said,
"Community Housing and other similar not-for-profits have already
benefited from the programs supported by these grants. Programs to
build our capacity and efficiency such as that provided by the Housing
Capacity Building Program help us to focus on development and to pass
along benefits to the community in the form of enhanced services."
Community Development Resource Center
The programs and services of the Community Development Resource
Center have been developed by a cooperative partnership, which
includes the Center for Community Development, Delaware Association of
Nonprofit Agencies, Catalyst, the DSHA and the DCF.
The new center's projects will include:
* A funding pool of $730,000 to support grants and technical
assistance services to nonprofit and community-based
organizations working in the areas of housing and community
economic development;
* A resource library with a wide range of current print and
electronic materials, organizational newsletters and public
domain computer software in the areas of housing, economic
development, social service delivery and nonprofit management
and leadership;
* Technical assistance to help agency personnel supervise
interns and volunteers;
* Priority access for Enterprise Community organizations to
workshops and training programs in the areas of nonprofit
management, community economic development, housing and the
supervision of interns and volunteers; and
* Applied research and analysis to help public, nonprofit and
community-based organizations develop and guide programs to
promote community development.
"Economically distressed areas face a multiplicity of
interrelated social and economic problems which all need to be
addressed by the public, private and nonprofit institutions in the
broader community," Tim Barnekov, director of the Center for Community
Development, said. "The most important contribution that the Community
Development Resource Center can make is to strengthen the capacity of
all our institutions-public, private and nonprofit-to address a
variety of problems and particularly the capacity of those groups
which have the least access to resources-community-based organizations
that are seeking to develop housing, deliver services to low-income
households or promote economic development."
The center also will involve Delaware Technical and Community
College, which will administer an internship program allowing students
in its human services programs to work in community agencies.
The resource center will be located in the new Community Services
Building (currently the Montchanin Building) when it opens sometime in
the late summer of 1996. In the meantime, the center will occupy
temporary quarters in a site to be determined shortly and will be open
to public use in the next four to six weeks.
Housing Capacity Building Program
The UD Center for Community Development, working with the DCF and
the DSHA, already has developed a successful Housing Capacity Building
Program in Dover. The HUD and DOE grants will enable the same partners
to have a site in Wilmington within the new Community Development
Resource Center. Together they have already established working
relationships with a wide range of public, private and nonprofit
organizations, which are involved in the development of affordable
housing or providing housing-related services.
Steve Peuquet of the Center for Community Development said that
"over the last year and a half, the Housing Capacity Building Program
has awarded grants totaling more than $156,000 to assist 28 nonprofit
organizations statewide to help them purchase computer and office
equipment, as well as consulting services to enhance their operating
capacity. In addition to making the HCBP more accessible to
organizations in northern Delaware, the DOE grant will provide new
funds to support capacity-building grants to nonprofit organizations."
According to Susan A. Frank, director of the Delaware State
Housing Authority, "We are reaching a milestone today that illustrates
the power of partnering and allows the authority to continue
strengthening Delaware to provide better affordable housing
opportunities to low- and moderate-income families."
Collis Townsend, executive director of the Delaware Community
Foundation, said, "It has been a pleasure to be involved with and
provide support to the HCBP. I think we have a national role model for
encouraging public and private support to housing related
organizations. I look forward to the new opportunities provided by
this grant."
The HCBP philosophy is to provide a focused, rather than shotgun,
approach to issues of housing, while allowing a number of interrelated
urban problems to be addressed. The Wilmington program will serve as a
central point of contact for organizations seeking information on
housing resources and programs and will provide training in areas such
as organizational development, housing development and management
techniques, technical assistance to nonprofit housing organizations
and financial assistance to nonprofits for core operating support.