Contact: Ernie Blazar 202-224-7627 Shana Stribling 224-0309
Monday, October 15, 2001

WASHINGTON - Delivering once again for St. Louis housing needs, Senator Kit Bond announced today that the federal government has awarded $35 million for the revitalization of the Blumeyer Housing Development in St. Louis. Al Jackson, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), joined Bond today in making the announcement.

“This money will help build better lives,” said Bond, the lead Republican on the Senate subcommittee that provides money for HUD. “This is really not about buildings and dollars, it is about helping people achieve their dreams and fulfill their potential.”

HUD will provide $35 million in HOPE VI funds, which will be used to leverage 3.5 times the amount in private funding for a total of $166 million for the project. The plan calls to rebuild Blumeyer into a mixed-income, intergenerational community. A total of 815 units will be built on and off site, including 515 rental units and 300 for-sale units to be constructed in surrounding neighborhoods.

Bond is a long-time champion of the need to reform public housing in America, many of the positive results of his work now visible in St. Louis. In 1990, Bond fought for a better alternative to warehousing families in distressed high-rise units. One example of that was Bond’s work to replace the unliveable Vaughn public housing with the Murphy Housing Project. Bond’s initiative ultimately led to the successful HOPE VI mixed income housing and community redevelopment program beginning with the transformation of Vaughn Public Housing into Murphy Park. Before Blumeyer, Bond also secured the federal appropriation that led to the 1995 award of the $42 million HOPE VI grant to replace the Darst-Webbe project in St. Louis with good homes.

The new Blumeyer plan will boost home ownership opportunities for public housing residents and will redevelop a physically and socially isolated public housing development into an attractive, safe and economically integrated community with clear ties to the surrounding neighborhoods. McCormack Baron and Associates will oversee the project.

The Blumeyer HOPE VI plan also includes job training, employment, education and healthcare so that residents can have the necessary resources to not only transform their physical neighborhood, but their lives as well.

The Revitalization Effort of the Arthur Blumeyer Housing Site is a result of Bond’s work on Section 202 of the Federal Omnibus Consolidated Reconciliation Act of 1996. That law requires that viability assessments be preformed for projects of 300 or more units with vacancy rates of 10 percent or higher. This federal law requires units to be removed from the housing stock within five years if public housing costs exceed the cost of housing vouchers and if long-term viability of the property cannot be assured through a reasonable revitalization plan.

HUD conducted a viability study in 1999 to assess Blumeyer. This report identified the two elderly high-rise buildings, 174 of the family townhouses and both of the family high rises as non-viable.

Upon completion of the study, the St. Louis Housing Authority began the process of moving toward becoming in compliance with the federal law by revitalizing the Blumeyer Housing site through HUD’s HOPE VI program.