LakewoodAlive Announces New Housing Program

Lakewood Alive-- through the generous support of Charter One Bank, the City of Lakewood, Enterprise Community Partners, First Federal Lakewood, Ohio Savings Bank and individuals through the CrowdRise Challenge-- is excited to unveil a new program. The Community Engagement Program will develop outreach to homeowners and residents in two low-moderate income neighborhoods to support affordable housing, stabilize and establish a sense of pride, ownership, and leverage the power of neighborhood relationships. Housing is Lakewood's economic lynchpin and we must ensure these neighborhoods (Birdtown and Scenic Park) sustain their aging housing stock. These neighborhoods are primarily occupied by senior and low income families, groups who often struggle most to maintain sustainable housing.

As many know, maintaining a historic home is a daunting and expensive task. Whether an owner occupant, tenant or landlord, we seek to provide them all with resources to maintain their homes, thereby strengthening neighborhoods. LakewoodAlive believes in empowering residents through education to instill confidence in all aspects of homeownership.

Residents will begin to see the presence of the program in early March. LakewoodAlive will kick off the program with a community meeting in each neighborhood to get to know folks, gain insight into the needs of the community and introduce our Community Engager. The Engager will work with individuals and groups to provide access to programs, homeowner education and support, establish block club structures, and help residents engage with one another and with public officials. Relationship-building is key to the success of this type of program. Trust needs to be built and relationships need to develop in order for the position to be effective leading to better program utilization including those that LakewoodAlive provides. 

This program implementation has been a major focus of LakewoodAlive since February 2014. We are thrilled to be able to roll out this exciting program and to work hand-in-hand with residents to really get down to what our residents and neighborhoods need to thrive.

For more information about the Community Engagement Program or the Housing Outreach Program visit lakewoodalive.com or call Allison at 216-521-0655.

Allison Urbanek

Allison Urbanek is the Housing Outreach Director for LakewoodAlive. Allison is a housing advocate and enjoys working with homeowners to help make homeownership easier. She and her husband Dave, live in Lakewood and love being a part of the Lakewood community.

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Volume 11, Issue 2, Posted 1:08 PM, 01.20.2015