Photo courtesy of Will County
One of dozens of homes Will County has successfully acquired, rehabbed, and/or resold through its successful Neighborhood Stabilization Program.
By Tim Mack- May 17, 2011
Tim Mack has been a member of Will County’s Community Development Division since 2007, specializing in grant financial management for CDBG, HOME, and LEAD. He assumed the program management role for the county's Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) with its inception in 2008. He also has 10-plus years of personal experience in real estate investing.
In this blog post, Mack provides his perspective on what's making Will County's NSP program a success.
As a result of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act (HERA), Will County was awarded a $5.16 million grant to help stabilize communities through the acquisition, rehabilitation, and re-sale of foreclosed properties to eligible home owners. Based on the legislative requirements established, we designed a program that would…
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Photo by Zol87 via Flickr/Creative Commons
Mayor Rahm Emanuel gives his Inaugural Address on May 16, 2011, at the Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago's Millennium Park.
How the passage of time makes us reflect. I was extraordinarily fortunate that oh, let’s just say some years ago, then-Mayor-elect Richard M. Daley took a risk on a 24-year-old and gave me the chance to prove myself and to be part of making a difference in this city, even while making some mistakes. On his inauguration day in April 1989, I recall being awed by the enormity of the challenges he faced and appropriately sober about the opportunity I was being handed as I joined his new administration as an Assistant to the Mayor. A colleague and I walked into that grand dame of a building called City Hall, and on a whim decided to get our shoes shined in the lobby before entering our new place of work. It seemed like a lighthearted way to mark a new beginning: reporting for duty,…
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We applaud U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin’s (D-Ill.) desire to make the TIGER program permanent. Joined by U.S. Sens. Murray (D-Wash.) and Collins (R-Maine), Durbin introduced the bipartisan Transportation Infrastructure Grants and Economic Reinvestment Act (TIGER), a bill that would authorize the Secretary of Transportation to provide grants and direct loans and loan guarantees to states, local governments, and transit agencies to fund critical projects of national significance.
“Two years ago, we worked to develop the TIGER grant program as a coordinated, comprehensive effort to identify and fund nationally significant transportation projects that will improve safety, spur economic development, reduce congestion and create thousands of good paying jobs across the country,”…
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Image from http://www.ymc.lib.oh.us
Mayor Williams' message truly inspired me and many of the 60-plus attendees of the Urban Exchange event at the RailCats Stadium. My colleague Marisa Novara has already summarized the key approaches Youngstown is taking, so I won’t try to define those here. However, I do want to share some of what I learned from his visit, which was first and foremost the clear importance of leadership and an engaged and active citizenry.
The Youngstown 2010 Plan--the basis for revitalization efforts in Youngstown--was driven by hundreds of individuals and organizations who are now supporting its ongoing implementation. One of the most powerful ways those stakeholders have driven that plan is by electing a mayor who was involved in its development and committed to its institutionalization. Mayor…
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By Guest Author- May 6, 2011
The Chicago-to-St. Louis higher-speed rail line got a boost on Wednesday when Illinois was granted $186 million of the $2.4 billion in federal high-speed rail funding Florida turned down this past spring. This week, the U.S. Dept. of Transportation made available $400 million of those funds to other states through an application process.
Despite efforts from U.S. Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, to convince Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) not to turn down the project, the funds were sent back to U.S. DOT by the governor, who stated that it was a bad deal for tax-payers. Mr. Mica has said the “federal government has done everything” it can, including agreeing to put up 90 percent of the rail link’s financing, and…
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