Early Successes and Challenges in Choice Neighborhoods

This is a presentation at a panel at the Urban Affairs Association in Miami on the early lessons from the first five Choice Neighborhoods Initiaitive implementation grantees.

The Choice Neighborhoods Initiative, a signature program in the Obama Administration’s Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative, aims to transform neighborhoods with distressed public or assisted housing and extreme poverty into healthy, mixed-income communities with quality affordable housing, effective supportive services, high-performing schools, reduced violent crime rates, transportation options, and access to jobs. To achieve these goals, Choice grantees must renovate or redevelop a housing development, catalyze neighborhood revitalization, provide quality supportive services to residents, coordinate partners and agencies, and leverage resources. The Urban Institute and MDRC, under contract with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, conducted a process study of early implementation and collected qualitative and quantitative data to observe progress and establish baseline conditions on the housing, residents, and neighborhoods. This presentation will incorporate early findings from the first two years of Choice implementation by the first five grantees in Boston (Quincy Corridor), Chicago (Woodlawn), New Orleans (Iberville/Tremé), San Francisco (Eastern Bayview), and Seattle (Yesler).