Goldsboro Housing Authority gets $2.7M grant
By John Joyce
Published in News on December 18, 2015 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Lourdes M. Castro Ramirez of HUD speaks during the press conference Thursday about the funding to Goldsboro Housing Authority.
Goldsboro, ranked the fifth-poorest city in the nation according to a recent study, received an economic shot in the arm Thursday in the form of a $2.7 million federal grant through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Jobs Plus Program.
The Goldsboro Housing Authority applied for the grant earlier this year after being turned down last year.
The announcement came at a press conference held at the Fairview Housing Community Center attended by Goldsboro's newly-elected Mayor Chuck Allen, the city council, several dignitaries and officials from HUD offices in Greensboro and Washington, D.C.
Congressman G.K. Butterfield let slip the reason for the press conference -- a tightly-held secret up to that point -- in a recorded statement delivered just prior to keynote speaker, HUD Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Lourdes M. Castro Ramirez addressing the crowd.
"I want to congratulate (GHA) CEO Anthony Goodson Jr., for being selected by (HUD) to receive the Jobs Plus grant. This is a big deal, and this announcement could not come at a better time," Butterfield said. "The Jobs Plus grant will empower the housing authority to work with non-profit, local and state leaders to increase earnings and advanced employment outcomes for public housing residents through work readiness, job placement programs and financial literacy programs. This $2.7 million grant will go a long way in addressing the persistent poverty that has impacted too many individuals and families for far too long," he said.
Jobs Plus is a pilot program that began in 2014 with nine test cities across the country. This year Congress voted through an appropriations bill to fund another nine cities -- Philadelphia, Pa.; Nashville, Tenn.; Austin and San Antonio, Texas; Norfolk, Va.; Denver, Colo.; and Sacramento and Oakland, Calif.
And Goldsboro.
"We have a number of residents who are either unemployed, who have lost their job or are lacking the skill set or are lacking the support to get back to work," Mrs. Ramirez said. "So the purpose is to reconnect the public housing residents to employment -- to support them in that effort -- but also to link them to jobs that are going to lead to better wages and career paths. And in doing that, as families do well, become more stable and become more economically better off, what we have seen is that families are able to move up and either go into home ownership or go into the unassisted market."
All of the employment assistance efforts and public services designed to support them will be concentrated in West Haven, one of GHA's poorest communities. If the program does well, it will later be expanded to other housing communities in Goldsboro.
"The program is done in one place. Its called saturation-- bringing as many resources as possible into that community so that the services touch everyone that lives there. It is voluntary, it is not mandatory, but there is a very robust outreach effort to get everyone engaged," Mrs. Ramirez explained.
None of the residents are in danger of losing their home or their housing, she said.
"But based on the level of activity and resources, we want to make sure that every person has the opportunity to participate," she said.
Goodson and his staff put together one of the strongest applications she has ever seen, Mrs. Ramirez told the audience. The application included a budget and a detailing of the number of residents eligible for job placement and educational services, the conditions in which these folks are living in now and a host of community, city and non-profit resources on board and in agreement to help find the residents jobs and to ready them for work.
Jobs Plus entails three major components: employment services and job placement, financial incentives, and building community support for work.
"As an agency, we have always recognized the importance of providing services that go beyond housing for our residents," Goodson said. "Public housing was designed to be a transitional program. If we want to help our residents achieve that design, the residents of West Haven can use services such as job coaching, soft skills training and job placement assistance to work toward their own goals to finding employment here in our community."
Many GHA residents already take advantage of an existing program, the Resident Opportunities and Self Sufficiency grant program.
One such person, Jasmine Johnson, a 25-year-old resident of the GHA housing community known as Lincoln Homes, recently earned her GED through the ROSS program. Jobs Plus will extend many of the services she received, and more, to the residents of West Haven.
Ms. Johnson said she had been wanting to go back to school for a long time, but there were so many obstacles that facing them alone seemed insurmountable, she said.
"Transportation, the actual cost of the GED test itself," she said. Now that she has her GED, Ms. Johnson said she hopes to land a good job and to make enough money so that she and her three children can move out of public housing. Other residents can look at her success and know that it is possible to get out, too, she said.
The Jobs Plus program will begin as soon as the funding starts to come in, officials said.