SHAMOKIN — Northumberland County officials are upset and seeking answers to why their application for $4.45 million in state funds to refurbish abandoned properties in Shamokin, Mount Carmel and Coal Township has been denied.
Housing Authority Executive Director Edward Christiano said the application for the Neighborhood Stabilization Program grant to demolish or refurbish 30 foreclosed properties in the three municipalities addressed every issue. He said he can’t understand why the request was rejected.
“We rated sixth in the state among 63 counties for foreclosed properties,” Christiano said.
County officials have asked for a meeting with state Department of Community and Economic Development officials to find out what happened.
Commissioner Kurt Masser, a Republican, said he was expecting to receive funding for the project.
“In my mind, there was no doubt since we ranked high as far as need,” he said.
Although 10 abandoned properties had been identified in each of the three municipalities, the county planned to wait until after the judicial tax sale scheduled for later this summer to determine which properties would be selected for refurbishment or demolition.
There are about 240 properties eligible for sale, with the majority, about 90, in Shamokin. Mount Carmel and Coal Township are close behind, each with about 50 properties likely to be sold.
Masser said the county had applied for the grant through DCED to “clean up some blight and make these neighborhoods desirable.”
An authority employee for 21 years and president of the state Association of Housing and Redevelopment, Christiano said he’s familiar with the grant process and believed the county was a shoo-in for the funds.
The grant application demonstrated a commitment by the three communities, each of which had agreed to contribute $25,000 of their own Community Development Block Grant funds, and the county, which was planning to kick in $250,000 from affordable housing fee funds, he said.
Also, the proposal included turning four of the selected properties into a work site for the Central Pennsylvania Development Corp.’s Youth Build program, providing training to under-educated youths.
Ironically, Christiano said, the Youth Build program recently received grant funding from the federal government.
County officials believed they would not be competing with larger areas, such as Philadelphia, for about $59 million in Neighborhood Stabilization Program grant funding because they already received money to address blighted neighborhoods. However, when the list of 28 funded applications was released last week, Philadelphia and Allegheny County were among the recipients, Christiano said.
“They’re forgetting the little communities,” majority Commissioner Vinny Clausi complained. “We lost 2,800 jobs last year, but they’re giving money to places like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.”
Now county officials are asking state DCED officials to meet with them to explain what was lacking in the grant application.
“It’s not an adversarial meeting, but I’m curious where our deficiency was and want to make sure they followed the procedures in the request for proposals,” Christiano said.
The answers could help if the county opts to apply for federal stimulus money expected to be available for similar projects, he said.
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