While highways, infrastructure, and transit aid have received the most focus in news stories covering the $787 Billion national economic recovery bill passed into law recently, Syracuse and Onondaga County will soon be getting more than $10 million for housing related needs from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
And according to Mayor Matt Driscoll in a Post Standard story, Syracuse will also get a $1.7 million Community Development Block Grant, which the city will use to demolish abandoned homes and "clear the decks of blighted property that plagues a lot of our neighborhoods." He said the funds would be focused on neighborhoods where new houses could be built on cleared land this year.
The Mayor was quoted as saying, "I'm not going to be using these dollars to plug budget holes. We have a good number of housing starts taking place this summer, and I want to use the money to help with the reclamation of neighborhood housing stock."
The full story can be viewed at: http://www.syracuse.com/poststandard/stories/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1236247054185050.xml&coll=1
