President Barack Obama has made clear that there is no greater economic policy than one that invests in our children’s future and helps America out-educate the world. We believe that’s not possible if we leave a whole generation of children behind in our poorest neighborhoods.
Today, more than 10 million people live in neighborhoods surrounded by disinvestment, failing schools, troubled housing and little opportunity. Research shows that one of the most important factors in determining if children will do better financially than their parents is whether or not they grow up in a high-poverty neighborhood. The fact that we can predict health, economic and educational outcomes of children based on their ZIP codes is a tragedy.
That is why the Obama administration has been pursuing an interagency Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative that supports leaders from the public and private sectors working to transform distressed neighborhoods into sustainable, mixed-income neighborhoods with the affordable housing, safe streets and good schools that every family needs.
At the center of the administration’s initiative is a comprehensive neighborhood revitalization tool called Choice Neighborhoods.
First funded by Congress in 2010, Choice Neighborhoods builds on the HOPE VI public housing revitalization program. With strong bipartisan support, HOPE VI has created nearly 86,000 homes in healthy, mixed-income communities that were once troubled by distressed public housing — leveraging twice the federal investment in additional private development capital and raising the average income of residents by 75 percent or more.
Last week, the Obama administration awarded Choice Neighborhoods planning grants to 17 communities across the country, including Atlanta. With these funds, communities will be able to use proven mixed-use, mixed-finance tools available to transform not just public housing, but all kinds of federally supported housing in poor neighborhoods.
Where Choice Neighborhoods’ focus is on troubled housing, Promise Neighborhoods, a Department of Education initiative, works to ensure there are good schools and quality learning opportunities at the center of these neighborhoods, from cradle to career.
In Atlanta, you’ll see our partnership in action. As the city’s Choice Neighborhoods planning grant helps the city revitalize its University Homes public housing development, its Promise Neighborhoods grant will harness the talents of Atlanta’s historically black colleges and universities to provide educational opportunities to children living in the University Center neighborhood.
We believe Atlanta represents one powerful example of how the administration’s Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative is helping government invest smarter and more effectively — so we do more of what works and stop doing what doesn’t. This approach recognizes that all of us — government, businesses, schools and communities — are responsible for preparing students in every neighborhood to compete in the 21st century.
As Obama has said, “If poverty is a disease that infects an entire community in the form of unemployment and violence, failing schools and broken homes, then we can’t just treat those symptoms in isolation. We have to heal that entire community.”
To out-educate the rest of the world and win the future, we believe we must — and with these tools, we will.
Shaun Donovan is the U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
Arne Duncan is the U.S. Secretary of Education.
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