| The University of Illinois at Springfield will receive a Community Outreach Partnership Centers Program grant to assist the East Side neighborhood of Springfield. This neighborhood is beset with high poverty rates and a severely deteriorated and overcrowded housing stock.
Activities to be undertaken include:
1. Helping to establish and participate an "adopt a block" initiative, similar to "adopt a highway" campaigns, to clean up and maintain the neighborhood.
2. Developing and implementing solutions to the garbage and refuse problems of the neighborhood.
3. Working with the City to improve its housing code enforcement process.
4. Increasing homeownership through contract-for-deed arrangements.
5. Helping residents create a formal neighborhood-controlled organization that could undertake improvement projects.
Community partners include The Springfield Project, the Springfield Urban League, and Lincoln Land Community College. Additional matching funds are being provided by the Dominican Sisters of Springfield and the Springfield Coalition of Black Attorneys.
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