HUD RECOGNIZES INDIANAPOLIS AS MODEL 'HOMEOWNERSHIP ZONE'
City credited with transforming 'Dodge City' neighborhood into Fall Creek Place

WASHINGTON - For years it was called 'Dodge City,' a 26-block neighborhood in Indianapolis known for gunfire and boarded up properties. Today, with the help of the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Homeownership Zone Initiative, Indianapolis is building more than 300 new homes and breathing new life into a community most people once feared to live in.

HUD today awarded Indianapolis the Department's first Homeownership Zone Award for the creative way the City used a $4 million HUD grant to stimulate other public and private contributions to turn 'Dodge City' into Fall Creek Place, a mixed-income community being developed within the City's Homeownership Zone.

"Indianapolis has taken the ball and run with it!" said Nelson Bregon, HUD's Deputy Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development. "Fall Creek Place is a model for how the federal-local partnership can work to restore hope and opportunity to once proud neighborhoods. Indianapolis is setting a high standard for other communities around the country looking for creative approaches to community revitalization."

Bregon presented Indianapolis Deputy Mayor Carolyn Coleman with the award in recognition of the success of the City's Homeownership Zone Initiative. Coleman and representatives from 10 other Homeownership Zones are in Washington for a two-day workshop on community revitalization.

HUD's Homeownership Zone Demonstration Program provided seed money to 11 cities to reclaim vacant neighborhoods, to increase homeownership and to promote economic revitalization. The program's goal is to use large-scale development of new homeowner opportunities to reclaim vacant and blighted land and property, to promote strong mixed-income neighborhoods, and to stimulate comprehensive economic revitalization of distressed areas. Homeownership Zones usually consist of several hundred new homes in concentrated areas near centers of employment and services.

HUD is the nation's housing agency committed to increasing homeownership, particularly among minorities, creating affordable housing opportunities for low-income Americans, supporting the homeless, elderly, people with disabilities and people living with AIDS. The Department also promotes economic and community development as well as enforces the nation's fair housing laws. More information about HUD and its programs is available on the Internet.

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