|
Volume 3 Number 5
May 2006
In this Issue
Universities Rebuilding America
Family Self-Sufficiency Program Promotes Change
Promoting Work in Public Housing
Recent Studies Analyze Assisted Housing
In the next issue of ResearchWorks
Universities Rebuilding America
HUD Grants Bring ‘The Old College Try’ to Gulf Coast Reconstruction
Speaking from the once-flooded campus of Xavier University in New Orleans this past March, HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson announced $5.6 million in grants to colleges and universities wishing to assist communities in the Gulf Coast Region. As part of the Universities Rebuilding America Partnership (URAP), 16 universities
received grants of up to $350,000 under two separate programs.
Secretary Jackson said, “Xavier is here to stay. And New Orleans is here to stay, and the Gulf Coast is here to stay. And I am committed, and HUD is committed, to being your partner every step of the way.” As part of this innovative program, HUD will tap the intellectual expertise and boundless energy on America’s campuses to assist in the rebuilding process. Jackson said, “I want to inspire and empower students and faculty to get involved in one of the most important rebuilding efforts in our country’s history.” Nine URAP grants were awarded to Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and seven grants were awarded to schools of architecture, construction, and planning.
Each college or university identified a community partner with whom it would work. Xavier University, for example, received a grant to assist low- and
moderate-income residents of three communities in New Orleans in establishing a health information center, and to recruit, train, and employ healthcare volunteers and professionals. Elizabeth City State University (ECSU) will use part of its grant to work with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Southeast Louisiana to repair club facilities and install new technology for academic learning programs. Tulane University will use its grant to develop the Tulane URBANbuild program, an outreach community design and construction
program that will serve as a center for post-Katrina reconstruction efforts in the greater New Orleans area.
The grants were written broadly in order to support projects that communities deemed to be essential. The director of ECSU’s Community Development Program, Morris Autry, points to their own experience in
eastern North Carolina as helpful in keying in on those essential needs: “We relate to the suffering caused by natural disasters. We are still recovering from Hurricanes Floyd and Isabel, which weren’t as tough as what they’ve had in Louisiana, but we do have a sense of what they’re going through.” Thus, ECSU’s plan is to focus on home repair assistance, housing counseling and referral services, and home financing assistance, in addition to the work they will do with Boys and Girls Clubs.
Meeting another essential need following the disasters, Ohio State University’s Knowlton School of Architecture will provide planning services to communities in Harrison County, Mississippi. Ohio State will work with citizens, elected officials, and local planners to develop community plans, revise building codes, and modify zoning ordinances — all as an integral part of rebuilding and recovery. Assistant Professor Jennifer Evans-Cowley notes that, while students are contributing an essential service, they are also undergoing an incredibly rich learning experience: “We’re spending our spring break holding town hall meetings in DeLisle and Saucier. We will also be holding a leadership meeting with the FEMA ESF-14 planners, the County Board of Supervisors, Planning Commission, staff and citizen leaders to discuss the planning priorities for the county to help guide our work over the next two years.”
Eric Greitens — a White House Fellow at the Department of Housing and Urban Development — designed the Universities Rebuilding America Program in the days following the hurricane. According to Greitens, “Communities that were hit by the hurricanes and the floods obviously had tremendous needs. They also had a lot of strength and real ideas about how they wanted to rebuild. At the same time, we have tremendous
talent in this country, much of it in our colleges and universities. So we designed a program that would assist communities by matching them with some of the expertise, energy, ideas, and funding that they would need in order to rebuild stronger communities.”
Work funded by the grants will begin shortly. A full listing of the grantees and their projects can be obtained from the Office of University Partnerships, a part of HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research, at http://www.oup.org.
|
| 
