Major Grant opportunity for Newburgh and its Artists!!!

Kresge Foundation Invites Preliminary Applications for Arts and Community Building and Artists' Skills and Resources Grant Opportunities

Deadline: February 1, 2012(Preliminary Applications)

The Kresge Foundation's Arts and Culture Program seeks to foster the power of arts and culture to recharge and rebuild communities of all sizes in the United States.

As part of this effort, the program is accepting preliminary grant applications from nonprofit organizations for its Community Building and Artists' Skills and Resources focus areas.

The Arts and Community Building focus area is intended to help develop a systematic way to support arts and culture as a tool for revitalizing communities. To achieve this goal, the program will invest in exemplary efforts and identify and share best practices within the field. At the national level, the foundation wishes to fund exemplary organizations dedicated to integrating arts and community-building activities and identifying new methods as models for the field; commission and publish research on efforts to integrate cultural organizations and artists into community-building efforts; elevate the visibility of arts and community building, and disseminate best practices through meetings, publications, and other means as appropriate. The foundation is accepting preliminary applications from grantseekers for national-level projects.

The Artists' Skills and Resources focus area is based in the belief that community transformation would be more widespread if more communities embraced artists as important contributors to the identity, vitality, and cohesion of the places where they live. The program seeks to boost artists' skills and resources by supporting leading practitioners as well as efforts to increase the number of live-and-work spaces for artists.

Preliminary applications for both funding areas will be accepted and reviewed on an ongoing basis through February 1, 2012. (After that date, the grant opportunity may be modified.) The preliminary application contains a data-entry component and several attachments, including a narrative. Applicants with promising requests will be asked to complete the second part of the application process.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE WEBSITE!

Great Grant Opportunity for Newburgh Art Community

New National Arts Initiative Invites Letters of Inquiry for Art-Centered Community Development Projects

Deadline: November 15, 2011 (Letters of Inquiry)

Eleven private philanthropies have joined with the National Endowment for the Arts and a number of federal agencies to establish ArtPlace, a nationwide initiative to drive community revitalization with a new investment model that puts the arts at the center of economic development.

ArtPlace will periodically awards grants to organizations doing groundbreaking work in creative placemaking in communities across the United States. The project recently announced its first round of grants, awarding a total of $11.5 million to thirty-four projects in cities from Honolulu to Miami.

Each project supported by ArtPlace was selected for developing a new model of helping communities thrive by strategically integrating artists and arts organizations into key local efforts in transportation, housing, community development, job creation, and other areas. The program will provide a similar level of support in 2012.

ArtPlace is inviting Letters of Inquiry for its second round of funding from partnerships involving arts organizations, artists, designers, and local and national organizations working to produce a transformative impact on community vibrancy. The initiative seeks to provide seed grants for entrepreneurial projects that already enjoy strong local buy-in, that integrate with a community’s economic development and community revitalization strategy, and that have the potential to attract additional private and public support.

Award amounts are decided on a case-by-case basis. In the grant program's first year, grants ranged from $63,100 to $1 million. The average grant was $349,784 and the median grant was $275,000.

ArtPlace Request for Letters of Inquiry

Grants Grants Grants

Home Depot is giving $5,000 to community organizations that help improve the living conditions of seniors, veterans, and/or the disabled with housing repairs, weatherization and modifications.

The shoe company, Saucony, has a Run for Good program that awards up to $10,000 in cash and in-kind donations for youth running programs to encourage active and healthy lifestyles for children under 18.

KaBoom! and the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group have a program, Playful City USA, that awards grants up to $30,000 to help local governments use best practices to ensure their children have the time and space they need to play and to be active and healthy.

Banfield Charitable Trust offers non-profit organizations support for keeping pets and their people together.

The Mental Health Foundation's "It's OK to talk about it" grant initiative awards up to $10,000 to support innovative programs that address the reduction of stigma, the promotion of public awareness, and education on mental health issues for the target population of young adults. These programs must entail a peer component of young adults who have personally lived with mental illness and can share their condition and stigmatization in a candid and positive manner with peers. The grant program's goal is to improve acceptance of and access to mental health services and supports. The deadline to apply is the end of this month.

More Grants

I'm back at work after three beautiful months of disability/bonding leave. I'm seeing a few grants that might be interesting for Newburghers:

Preserve New York program offers grants to municipalities and non-profit organizations for historic structure reports, historic landscape reports, and cultural resource surveys. Typical awards are between $3,000 and $10,000.

Scotts Miracle-Gro is giving community organizations up to $1,500 in money and in-kind support for gardening and community beautification projects.

Dollar General is offering up to $5,000 in Back-to-School literacy grants to assist school libraries and media centers. They are also awarding up to $3,000 to schools, public libraries and non-profit organizations for Youth Literacy programs.

M.A.C. AIDS Fund is awarding up to $25,000 for programs that provide food and nutrition to people living with HIV or AIDS.

Women Helping Others (W.H.O.) will support grass-roots programs serving the overlooked needs of women and children with grants up to $40,000.

JustFilms, an initiative from Ford Foundation, awards grants to film, video and digital works that show courageous people confronting difficult issues and actively pursuing a more just, secure and sustainable world.

Cinereach is also funding full-length fiction and non-fiction films, with up to $50,000 per project.

Let me know if you have a particular area for which you'd like to find funding.

Community Grant for Collaborations with Police

From the Foundation Directory RFP Alerts:

Applications Invited for MetLife Foundation Community-Police Partnership Awards Program

Deadline: February 28, 2011

The MetLife Foundation and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation are partnering for the tenth year to recognize, sustain, and share the work of innovative partnerships between community groups and police to promote neighborhood safety and revitalization.

The MetLife Foundation Community-Police Partnership Awards program invites applications from partnerships that exhibit tangible accomplishments in their efforts to advance the process, outcome, and evaluation of potent police-community collaborations. Eligible applicants must be member organizations of partnerships that include, but need not be limited to, community organizations and police.

Awardees receive a monetary grant and their work will be promoted via case studies to a wide audience of practitioners, policymakers, and academics.

The program will award grants in the following two categories:

Neighborhood Revitalization Awards (six awards of $15,000 to $25,000 each): These awards celebrate exemplary collaborations between community groups and police that yield crime reduction as well as economic development outcomes such as real estate development, business attraction, and job growth.

Special Strategy Awards (five awards of $15,000 each) will be given to community and police partners who have achieved significant accomplishments in applied technology, aesthetics and greenspace improvement, diversity inclusion and integration, drug market disruption, gang prevention and youth safety, and seniors and safety.

Program information and the full Request for Proposals are available at the LISC Web site:

http://www.lisc.org/section/ourwork/national/safety/awards

City of Newburgh Grants and Loans

A quick update on the Facade Grant and Renovation Grant/Loans: there's a stipulation to the programs that the building cannot have any code violations, meaning it must be habitable and up to code in order to qualify for the grants. Unfortunately, Eddie's house doesn't have windows or plumbing/heating, therefore it is not up to code and not habitable.

Eddie's trying to make the argument that the combination of his own money, his own efforts and the city grants would allow him to fix the building and make it habitable. It's an uphill battle, though, and although the city officials seemed to be helpful at first, they have not returned his subsequent phone calls or emails. Sigh.

Anyway, it's a shame because the house is on a crucial corner and its occupancy could change the whole outlook of the neighborhood it's in. We attended the Newburgh Heights Association meeting last week, even though we don't live in the Heights, and they echoed the same sentiment that Eddie voiced to the City of Newburgh in an appeal letter - that every house makes a difference. Each abandoned or boarded-up property devalues the surrounding area and only perpetuates the cycle of crime, lowered neighborhood pride, and lower rates of owner-occupied housing.

It would be great to start up a Montgomery-Grand-Liberty Association, where there are lots of beautiful historic homes that need to be remembered and advocated for. And there are a lot of people already in the neighborhood who take care of their own properties, who I imagine wouldn't be opposed to expending energy on making sure other properties are taken care of.

Since we haven't done anything with the house in a while, we were shamed into taking some action...so, maybe this weekend we'll do some landscaping in the front yard.

Financial Update

We're back from Hawaii and ready to tackle the house! A few pieces of bad news.

First, we didn't get the Mount Saint Mary/St. Luke's Hospital Grant. After going through the trouble of taking the Pathstone first-time homebuyer's course and sending in the application last year, Pathstone dropped the ball and forgot about us. They were waiting for the grant to be available to non-employees of Mount Saint Mary and St. Luke's Hospital. When that happened at the end of the summer, they didn't tell us. I spoke with the community liason/grant administrator at Mount Saint Mary and she said she never received our application. Now that we've closed on the house, we're no longer eligible.

Second, it turns out that we have serious plumbing problems. The water main is cracked and we have to hire an excavator to repair it before we can run pipes into the house.

Third, the City of Newburgh cited us two violations which had existed for the two years that the house was on the market and owned by the bank, but they never cited the bank for it.

Fourth, in our first weekend back there was a pitbull chained to the house and a stolen ATV in our driveway. Oh, and a shrine to someone who died (was killed?) right next door.

A few good things have happened, too:

Our next door homeowner helped us when we had to build a fence between our two properties. He provided barrels of water for the cement.

A wonderful Newburghian and his partner donated solid Victorian doors to us from their collection.

Community members have been introducing themselves (many from NCAC) and offering help, services, and information.

We found the best BBQ place - Brothers BBQ in Greater Newburgh/ New Windsor. The chopped bbq and ribs were crazy good, as well as the collard greens.

Thanks everyone!

Restoration...Begin!

We (well, I spoke for Eddie) were interviewed by a great blog about our decision to move to Newburgh. It was great to talk about the city and our house, and to get excited about moving. There's a really cute photo of Tracer, too.

Things are coming along...we met with an electrician, a plumber, a...heating guy (HVAC guy?), and our realtor, on Saturday. They are all awesome and it was a non-stop hyuk-fest for two hours. We're getting the power turned on this week, and hopefully the plumber can check out the water main to see if any work needs to be done there. If not, we'll be moving forward pretty quickly with fixing up the electrical wiring, installing a tankless water heater and an old boiler on the third floor.

The tricky part is we're also applying for tax exemptions and incentives. Newburgh has two tax exemptions - the Real Property Tax Exemption for First-Time Homebuyers of Newly Constructed Homes, and the School TAx Relief Exemption (STAR). The Real Property Tax Exemption also applies to non-newly constructed homes if there is a renovation or remodeling of an existing home. The renovation or remodeling cost "must exceed $3,000 and the contract for the work must be contracted for within 90 days from the date of purchase."

We need to make sure the work is completed by March 7, in order to qualify, and the deadline to apply is the taxable status date, or March 1. The exemption lasts for five years, "beginning at fifty percent the first year and declining to ten percent in the fifth and final year." Eligibility also depends on the household income and the purchase price of the home. It follows the State of New York Mortgage Agency (SONYMA) guidelines.

To receive the STAR exemption, the owner must be at least 65 years old, and/or the income of all owners and owners' spouses be $73,000 or less. The deadline is also March 1, the taxable status date.

The tricky part is coordinating the tax exemption with the Historic Preservation Tax Incentives (HPTI) Program. To receive the HPTI, all work that we want to claim the benefit for must be approved by the Technical Preservation Services Department of the National Park Service. The paperwork is long and tedious, with lots of photo documentation. There's no way we'll get the work approved before the tax exemption deadline, so...we'll see?

Mount Saint Mary/Saint Luke's Hospital Grant

Here's more information on applying for the Homeownership Incentive Grant from Mt. St. Mary and St. Luke's Hospital.

The grant is for $10,000 towards the downpayment/closing cost/renovation of your prospective home, if it is located within a certain radius of the college and hospital. It is basically within the boundaries of Robinson, North, Liberty and Broadway. Grants are first distributed to employees of either institutions, but the grant becomes available to community members in July (2009).

The grant is administered through Pathstone/Rural Opportunities. In order to be eligible, you have to meet the income requirements ($43,050 for a one-person household, $49,200 for a two-person, $55,350 for a three-person, $61,500 for four-person, etc.) and then attend the first-time homebuyer's course.

The next information session for the homebuyer's course is Monday, June 29, 2009. It takes place in Newburgh on 36 Chambers Street at 5pm.

The number for Pathstone/ROI is (845) 569-0770. For more information, there is a recorded message on ext.1.

Plan B

Our new timeline:

June
Eddie finds a job *right now*!

July
Receive grant from Mt. Saint Mary College/St. Luke's Hospital ($10,000)
Receive RECAP grant ($24,000)

August
Apply for mortgage. This time, if we get the grants (to cover the 20% downpayment), we'll try for a traditional mortgage and renovation loan. Hudson Valley Federal Credit Union offered a great rate for that combined loan (less than 5.5%) and the closing costs were half what it is for an FHA loan. Plus, no mortgage insurance.

September
Close on the house. Maybe. Hopefully.

Work-arounds and Free Money

Mortgage crisis update: we figured out that we can use the first-time homebuyer tax incentive to cover the additional funds that we need. Luckily, Eddie hadn't filed his taxes yet, so once that money gets direct-deposited, we just need to send our bank a copy of his bank statement showing the additional funds. Crisis averted!

Contractor crisis update: the contractor that we originally planned on using is going to use a partner's company to get validated. Maybe it will work...?

Additional info for home buyers: we're applying for a grant from St. Luke's Hospital and Mount Saint Mary's College - the two biggest employers in Newburgh. It's a homeownership incentive program to revitalize the neighborhood around them.

If we had been smarter, before even looking for a house, we would have enrolled in the Rural Opportunities Inc. Homeownership Assistance Program for First Time Homebuyers. After attending a three- session Homebuyer Education Course, we would have been eligible for a slew of grants that would have assisted in downpayments, closing costs and for half the cost of the mortgage. They recently merged with Pathstone, for those interested. But, since we are already in the process of buying a home, we don't qualify for the program or the grants.

And finally, since the house is in a historic preservation district, we qualify for NY State and Federal Historic Preservation Tax Credits. This means we get back 20 to 30% of the renovation cost as state or federal tax credit.