THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 21, 1994 TAG: 9406210366
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TONI WHITT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940621 LENGTH: PORTSMOUTH
City leaders envision converting a dilapidated downtown building in the center of an impoverished community into a one-stop shop for jobs, child care, education and small-business start-up programs.
{REST} The only thing standing in the city's way: thousands of other grant applications from all over the country. Only 65 federal grants are going to be awarded in the nation.
Employees with the Portsmouth Redevelopment and Housing Authority are completing the city's request to be designated as a federal enterprise community.
If the city is selected, 11 census tracts made up of a 5-square-mile area in the city will be designated as a federal enterprise community. The community would be made up of 24,860 people, with 43 percent living below the poverty level.
To combat poverty, unemployment and crime in that are 17 different non-profit agencies, city departments, colleges, universities and other organizations have put together 45 programs.
One proposal suggests that people living in the enterprise community could set up a small business to provide transportation for others living in the area.
Other organizations have designed small business start up and training programs, literacy and tutorial programs, teen pregnancy prevention, after-school programs, and weekend recreational programs for teenagers.
{KEYWORDS} POVERTY
by CNB