Just a few months after the Cuyahoga Land Bank opened its doors, the organization led a consortium that included Cuyahoga County, the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority and the City of Cleveland in applying for NSP-2 Stimulus funds for neighborhood stabilization.
As a result of Cuyahoga Land Bank’s leadership, the consortium was awarded $41 million in stabilization funds, one of the highest grant per capita in the country. “We’re very pleased at the success of this partnership,” says Paul Herdeg, housing manager for Cuyahoga County. “The application was competitive, so we’re grateful the Cuyahoga Land Bank was able to lead us in such a strong application.”
Cuyahoga County’s portion of the grant was relatively small, Herdeg explains, and will be applied to investor loan programs in five inner-ring communities, working hand-in-hand with another Cleveland neighborhoods. “That makes 20 targeted neighborhoods stabilized by these investor loans,” Herdeg says. “This process [of securing this large award] is an excellent example of regional cooperation. This collaboration is precisely the kind of collaboration that Cuyahoga County’s new government is working toward, and we hope to see more of it.”
Cuyahoga Land Bank President Gus Frangos agrees, adding that this award is “testament to county, city and agency cooperation. It also recognizes the Land Bank as an innovative non-profit organization with enhanced transactional capability of dealing with neighborhood blight.”