State Agency Releases Video Showcasing Marion’s Success with Blight Elimination Share

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The Indi­ana Hous­ing and Com­mu­ni­ty Devel­op­ment Author­i­ty (IHC­DA) has rec­og­nized the City of Mar­i­on for out­stand­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion in their Blight Elim­i­na­tion Pro­gram by pro­duc­ing and releas­ing a video. Mar­i­on and Gary were the only cities in the state rec­og­nized by the IHC­DA through these short documentaries.

“IHC­DA spot­light­ed the City of Mar­i­on because of how quick­ly and effi­cient­ly they were able to get their HHF Blight Elim­i­na­tion Pro­gram up and run­ning. Mar­i­on was one of the very first cities to com­plete demo­li­tion on their select­ed list of prop­er­ties, and through the cost sav­ings they achieved, they will be able to address even more prop­er­ties than orig­i­nal­ly antic­i­pat­ed,” said Mark Ney­land, IHC­DA Direc­tor of Asset Preservation.

For the past three years, the City of Mar­i­on has part­nered with the Afford­able Hous­ing Com­mu­ni­ty Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (AHC) of Mar­i­on to par­tic­i­pate in the Indi­ana Fore­clo­sure Pre­ven­tion Program/​Hardest Hit Fund Blight Elim­i­na­tion Pro­gram. Through this part­ner­ship, the City has been award­ed fund­ing for blight elim­i­na­tion 3 times. To date, the IHC­DA has award­ed Mar­i­on a total of $1,664,000 to demol­ish 80 homes. 64 of those demo­li­tions have already been com­plet­ed. The total fund­ing includes an addi­tion­al $174,000 this year after Mar­i­on demon­strat­ed con­tin­ued excel­lence in the program.

The BEP is an out­side fund­ing sys­tem the City has been uti­liz­ing to boost their exist­ing blight-fight­ing pro­gram, in which the City helps prop­er­ty own­ers with emer­gency demos of unsafe structures.

City of Mar­i­on Build­ing Com­mis­sion­er Jer­ry Foust­night said it was an hon­or to know that the City was select­ed to share its suc­cess sto­ry. ​“We are per­form­ing the require­ments to the best of our abil­i­ty, and each year fin­ish what we said we would do. Foust­night empha­sized the impor­tance of team­work. ​“We have the best peo­ple for the job to achieve the goals set before us.”

The video may be found here: https://​www​.youtube​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​?​v​=​n​i​l​-​b​H​tJBv0

Media Con­tacts:

Jer­ry Foust­night Build­ing Com­mis­sion­er, City of Mar­i­on (765) 662‑9931 jfoustnight@​marionindiana.​us

Bon­nie Ver­mi­ly­er CFO/​Controller/​IFPN/​HHF Helpline Admin­is­tra­tor, Afford­able Hous­ing Corp. 765.662.1574 x107 bonnie@​ahcindiana.​org