Barb Lickness wrote/asked: > Is Mr. Luce asking if whether or not NRP funds were > spent on low income people? Is he is making these > recommendations based on current statistical > information? If so, I would beg him to share this > information with us.
Here are some of the stats, gleaned from independent evaluations of NRP (available on the NRP web site), keeping in mind two things (1) allocations for housing rehab and preservation was by far the greatest expenditure of NRP funds, with park improvements, playground upgrades and other general neighborly improvements that Barb talks about making up a much smaller fraction of expenditures; and (2) data concerning the beneficiaries of NRP funds were generally hard to come but was available in the neighborhoods using the Center for Energy and Environment as a home assistance program administrator. Those stats are: 1. Home assistance programs (of various sorts) were not generally targeted to people with high degrees of need, with very few recipients below 30 percent of median income and only 1/5 of folks below 50 percent of median. 2. A majority of neighborhoods provided home assistance funds to people who had incomes in excess of the median income of households in the neighborhood, some two or three times the median. 3. Twenty-seven percent of all NRP funds through September 2000 were spent on home improvement loan/grant programs. 4. Only 0.6% of home improvement loan/grant program funds were provided to nonhomesteading owners (i.e., landlords, who obviously rent to tenants, who make up 44 percent of the Minneapolis population). 5. Eighty-eight percent of all recipients of home improvement loan/grant programs were white, while the city's non-white population decreased from 78% to 65% from 1990 to 2000. > At any rate, there is a broad spectrum of ways to > spend NRP funds that benefit low income people. The > investment in parks and schools that have happened > have benefited children of low income families. I'm not challenging this. These expenditures are certainly well worth it to many neighborhoods and benefit rich and poor alike, though they make up a much smaller percentage of NRP expenditures than on housing. Neighborhoods could meet their 52.5% housing expenditure requirement AND a new requirement of spending that benefits low income residents by building more readily affordable housing. We're not saying NRP should get rid of its success in engaging spending on parks and playgrounds, but that it and its participating neighborhoods must target dollars more precisely to directly benefit low-income residents. > NRP was never designed to be a social service delivery > program. In fact, the legislation is very narrow in > this area and in many cases discourages it. However, > NRP was always able to help neighborhoods who were > creative in designing programs or projects that fit > within the legal uses for NRP funds. Actually, state law mandates that "the social needs of neighborhood residents, particularly lower income residents, must be addressed to provide a safe and healthy environment for neighborhood residents, provide for the self-sufficiency of families, and increase the economic and social stability of neighborhoods." For the most part, neighborhoods have ignored the language of "particularly lower income residents" and that's what were calling attention to and demanding change. Gregory Luce Project 504/Phillips _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
