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Turner wants to divert stimulus funds to crumbling neighborhoods

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By Ken McCall, Staff Writer 6:42 PM Wednesday, August 26, 2009

DAYTON — Local governments are grateful for the millions of dollars they’re getting in stimulus funds for neighborhood stabilization, but there’s a major problem: the money can only be used on vacant properties.

That was one of the main messages delivered by panels of experts at a forum held Wednesday, Aug. 26, by Rep. Mike Turner, R-Centerville, and the Northeast-Midwest Institute. The forum, held in the County Government Center, focused on the impact of the housing crisis on local communities and the federal response to it.

Turner was gathering evidence to support legislation he’s co-authored that would allow any future neighborhood stabilization money to be used to help keep people in their homes, not just on homes that have already been abandoned.

The bill, Turner said, would have to be attached to a new bill authorizing more money to help crumbling neighborhoods in the nation’s big cities.

“If this provision could affect (such legislation,) we could help a senior with a leaking roof,” Turner said. “We could help someone who has a disability with a repair to the porch.”

Turner said he worked with Amy Redachi, executive director of Rebuilding Together Dayton, to write the legislation.

“The whole idea of neighborhood stabilization is to keep people in their homes,” Radachi told the congressman and audience packed into the county commission hearing room. “But currently, neighborhood stabilization money is used for demolition, and after the house is foreclosed upon, after the owner is out of the house, to buy the house back from the bank. So, in essence, it’s another bank bailout.”

Radachi said she hoped the forum would gather information that would call congressional attention to the problem. “We’re not stabilizing our neighborhoods, we’re evacuating them,” she said.

Testimony came from two panels of local and national housing experts. The information will be compiled into a report by the Washington D.C.-based Northeast-Midwest Institute and distributed to members of the congressional caucus from the region.

Diane DeVaul, director of policy for the institute, said her organization is trying to help develop good federal policies to help the nation’s older cities — almost all of which are in the region stretching from Iowa to Maine.

“We have a lot of cities like Dayton,” DeVaul said. “There are over 200 cities across the country that have similar characteristics. And the reason is because they’ve lost so many of the manufacturing jobs.”

DeVaul said her institute was aimed at trying to get federal officials to understand that the problems facing these cities are different from other metro areas.

“We need to have programs and policies targeted to meet the needs here,” she said.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2393 or kmccall@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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