There is an enlightening new post on the Building Neighborhoods blog, run by United Neighborhood Centers of America, answering (and speculating on) some of the questions left unanswered by the Promise Neighborhood request in President Obama’s new budget:
It is possible that as many as 20 neighborhoods will receive planning grants, but only a fraction of them will be chosen to advance to the implementation phase based on the quality of their plans.
If we assume around 5 neighborhoods receive implementation money in the first year, what does that tell us? If each of these neighborhoods comes up with a 50% local match, that’s $80 million per neighborhood over five years. Assuming a slow ramp-up, that could take you to a program maybe half of HCZ’s size in a few years time — possibly larger with more local money thrown in the pot.
Tags: blogs, Obama, Promise Neighborhoods