Choice Neighborhoods Initiative

The City of Newport News and the Newport News Redevelopment and Housing Authority have been awarded a $500,000 Choice Neighborhoods Initiative Grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to help revitalize and transform a portion of the Southeast Community. This planning grant will enable the City to develop a community-driven plan for Ridley Place and an expanded area around the public housing complex.

The Choice Neighborhoods Initiative (CNI) provides competitive grants to transform neighborhoods by rebuilding both public and assisted housing into mixed-income communities. The comprehensive process brings together local leaders, residents, and a vast array of other stakeholders to create and implement a neighborhood revitalization plan to transform distressed HUD housing and address neighborhood challenges. The initiative is intended to help localities build neighborhoods of opportunity.

The Choice Neighborhoods Initiative is focused on three core goals:

1. Housing: Replace distressed public and assisted housing with high-quality mixed-income housing that is well-managed and responsive to the needs of the surrounding neighborhood;
2. People: Improve educational outcomes and intergenerational mobility for youth with services and supports delivered directly to youth and their families; and
3. Neighborhood: Create the conditions necessary for public and private reinvestment in distressed neighborhoods to offer the kinds of amenities and assets, including safety, good schools, and commercial activity, that are important to families’ choices about their community.

To achieve these goals, communities develop a comprehensive neighborhood revitalization strategy, or Transformation Plan.