Every year, the city of Bloomington receives a $2.5 million grant in order to improve things around the community.
The community block development grant focuses on preserving existing housing, while also addressing issues like homelessness, and improving public housing opportunities.
“We’re going to target the areas that have the lowest housing stock and that have the most health to life issues because of the ages of the homes,” Grant manager William Bessler said. “We are not going to have a sidewalk improvement plan this year, but we are going to focus on public housing.”
These improvements are part of a larger five year plan to invest $2.5 million into community revitalization in the Bloomington area.
“The plan we released is for the second year of five years. We have gotten this grant for the past 52 years, but every five years we have to go out and do a lot of community engagement and build a new plan. This is the second year that we are doing a little bit of a shift on that to housing rehabilitation.”
This year’s plan will allocate $32,000 towards the demolition of vacant and unsafe structures around Bloomington.
Bloomington city council will have a hearing this evening for any community member with questions, and for those who want to know more about the plan.