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Business View Magazine
“The City of Gary, in conjunction with our non-profit
partner, the Legacy Foundation, which functions as the
community foundation for northwest Indiana, received
a half million dollar Choice Neighborhoods Initiative
Planning Grant from the U.S. Department of Housing
and Urban Development (HUD),” Campbell explains.
CNI Planning Grants are designed to support strug-
gling neighborhoods by facilitating the development
of comprehensive revitalization plans. The plans are
supposed to focus on the areas of housing, education,
transportation, and jobs, while synergizing the com-
bined efforts of public and private agencies, philan-
thropic groups, and community leaders and residents.
“We call our transformation plan ‘The Blueprint for
Change,’” Campbell continues. “We are submitting
our draft outline of our plan to HUD on July 15th, and
the planning project period ends in January 2017. We
are now in the process of getting our ducks in a row
so that we can implement the action steps that come
from the plan, once the formal project period ends.
One of the objectives of this Blueprint for Change is to
provide new, high-quality, mixed-income housing. The
Gary Housing Authority had a couple of scattered-site
(i.e. single-family home), public housing projects in
UPE that were in various states of disrepair. Through a
series of community meetings and research, we have
developed a transformation plan that includes demoli-
tion of substandard housing, to be replaced by new,
high-quality affordable housing.”
Noting that the area is traversed daily by 10,000 col-
lege students, Campbell also says the research sup-
ports that “a coffee house, some type of fast, casual
restaurant, and potentially, a small-footprint grocery
store,” could also, potentially benefit the area. But
most important to Campbell is the fact that the UPE
plan is resident-driven. “It is not something where the
city is saying you need this here, you need that there,”
she exclaims. “We have eight working groups, com-
