Yolo County Housing outlines Choice Neighborhood planning, Tupelo affordable housing and $28M ASEC application

Ian Evans, executive director for Yolo County Housing, updated the Yolo County Housing Authority on July 16 on the agency’s Choice Neighborhood planning effort for the Yolanda/Donnelly public housing site and a related affordable-housing project called Tupelo.

The update described progress on community engagement, funding applications and early-action project planning, including a $500,000 Choice Neighborhood Planning grant, an AHSC (Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities) application for about $28 million for the Tupelo site, and a Woodland City Council contribution of $1.5 million to support Tupelo.

Evans said Yolo County Housing was one of 13 national awardees of the HUD Choice Neighborhood Planning Grant, which provided $500,000 to support resident-centered planning for the Yolanda/Donnelly target housing and the surrounding neighborhood. He told commissioners the agency recruited consultants UDA and CVR to help run workshops and that the resident survey (100 questions) reached roughly 80% completion, above HUD’s 65% target. “The resident survey will give us all sorts of information about the folks that are currently living in what HUD refers to as the target housing sites,” Evans said.

Why it matters: the Choice Neighborhood planning grant is the preliminary step toward a larger HUD implementation…