Federal Grant Could Improve Education In Indy Neighborhood

The federal government designated one Indianapolis neighborhood as a “Promise Zone” Tuesday, a designation that gives the low income area more access to federal grants to improve education, its economy and reduce crime.

Indianapolis was chosen out of 123 communities.

The area considered the near East side of Indianapolis, for the purpose of this designation. photo credit: Google Maps

The Indy Star reports the designation is flexible and allows the community to focus on where it needs the most improvement.

Community leaders said the designation could prime the pump for grants on a number of fronts — from cleaning up polluted industrial sites to giving businesses incentives to locate in low-income areas, from fueling programs that aim to reducing school suspension rates to those that provide drug treatment and efforts to help ex-felons re-enter society.

“This is an opportunity to again reinforce that this neighborhood is growing, that it is becoming thriving, that it is a good place for businesses to locate here and that people are saying I’m betting on this community and I believe in this community,” said James Taylor, CEO of the John H. Boner Community Center, which lead the effort for the Promise Zone designation.

Other local organizations will work with the John H. Boner Community Center, including the city, United Way of Central Indiana and Near East Area Renewal.

The area is home to more than 17,000 people with more than 47 percent living in poverty and almost 25 percent unemployed.

Other cities chosen in this round of designations are Camden, N.J., Minneapolis, Minn., St. Louis, Mo., Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, S.D., Hartford, Conn., South Carolina Low Country and Sacramento, Calif.