Housing Authority Transforming Newport, Making National Impression

A recent analysis of Newport, Kentucky's use of the federal government's HOPE VI program shows that the historic river city may be one of the best success stories in America.  The use of the program in combination with a strategic economic development effort has caused what a report by the University of Louisville's Center for Sustainable Urban Neighborhoods describes as a transition from "vice to nice, and from hips to hip."

In past decades Newport struggled with a large criminal element that include gangster and mob activity, prostitution, and gambling.  But now thousands of visitors to Newport on the Levee each year might never know it if not for the large walking groups led by tour guides dressed playfully as the gangsters..

The report details that much of the improvement has come from the deconcentration of poor residents who were once housed in urban renewal housing developed during the post-war period in and around downtown Newport.  The concentrated low-income housing has been replaced by mixed-income developments through the HOPE VI program which encourages social mobility and provides self-sufficiency services to residents of the community through both local government and non-profit agencies.

The most recent, and prominent example of this deconcentration is seen on the western edge of downtown Newport where the Licking River and the Ohio River meet.  Once a large low-income housing project, the site is now slated to become an $800 million mixed-use development that will create more residences, offices, retail, entertainment and lodging in Newport's downtown.

What the Center for Sustainable Urban Neighborhoods recognized as most significant was the success Neighborhood Foundations was able to achieve for its size.  The housing authority is the smallest housing authority in the nation to win a HOPE VI grant, and it was recognized as the best housing authority in Kentucky by the Department of Housing & Urban Development in 2009.

The organization is now turning its focus to smaller pockets of Newport like Hamlet Street.  Just south of Newport's East Row Historic District, Hamlet Street represents what was once one of the worst blocks in Newport.  The completed program on the 900 block of Hamlet Street (map) will renovate three properties and construct five new homes in a development called Hamlet Row.

Writer: Randy A. Simes
Photography by Scott Beseler
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