Neighborhood Fund Program on Schedule

Eleven Los Angeles neighborhoods--including three in the Valley--should begin reaping the benefits of the Targeted Neighborhoods Initiative by the beginning of next year, city officials said Monday.

Created by Mayor Richard Riordan and approved by the City Council in March, the $33-million program will use federal funds to help community organizations make a variety of improvements in their areas. Each of the 11 neighborhoods will receive $1 million a year for three years to jump-start revitalization efforts.

Valley neighborhoods in the program are Canoga Park, North Hollywood and a stretch of Van Nuys Boulevard in Pacoima.

A prioritized list of activities to be funded through the Targeted Neighborhoods Initiative will be released within two weeks, said Parker Anderson, general manager of the Community Development Department.

Anderson told the Community and Economic Development Committee on Monday that the initiative is on schedule and that specific programs will be financed by the beginning of the year.

“We are hoping for [federal Housing and Urban Development Department] approval in December and we hope to start rolling out specific projects in January,” Anderson said.

The CDD’s status report will not include information about individual projects, but will instead chart the amount of funding to go to activities within each neighborhood, Anderson said.

Under HUD guidelines, three types of activities may be funded through the grants: housing construction and rehabilitation, commercial development and enhancement of community facilities, Anderson said.

Anne D’Amato, who is spearheading the initiative for the mayor’s office, said that the community teams working with the city will begin this month considering how to spend the grant money for the second year.

“It will be very interesting to see how these first 11 proceed,” D’Amato said. “We believe that they will be a model for community empowerment.”