Showing posts with label Summit County Ohio. Show all posts

Saturday, March 11, 2017

Reasons to invest in Akron

Report suggests ways Akron can grow through housing

February 16, 2017 UPDATED 2/22/2017

Just as Akron sets out on a new initiative to rebuild its population, two of the state's leading nonprofits focused on urban planning and economic development have unveiled some suggestions for revitalizing the city's housing stock.

The Akron-based John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Columbus' Greater Ohio Policy Center on Thursday, Feb. 16, released their Build Akron report.

Based largely on interviews with local residential developers, all of whom have been active in and around Akron, the report is meant to follow up on the city's own Planning to Grow Akron report that came out earlier this month, said Torey Hollingsworth, manager of research and policy for GOPC.

"I think the city has indicated, through their own report release and broader conversations, that they're really interested in tackling this issue," she said. "And I think there are a lot of doable concrete things that can be done to spur more conversations about what will work in Akron."

The Build Akron report draws on strategies that have worked in other cities in Ohio and the Midwest. That includes Cleveland, where strategies to convert office buildings to downtown residences have worked well — and could be duplicated in Akron to rebuild the downtown rental market, the Build Akron report finds.

Other suggestions include creating additional mixed-use districts to make urban living more attractive; using tax abatements as incentives for targeted development; working with hospitals and health systems on community development issues; and working with lenders to enable new homeowners to not only buy, but improve, houses with loans and investments that go beyond a home's initial purchase price.

While Akron's downtown is probably the most-mentioned neighborhood in the report, it is not at all the only subject of the research, said Kyle Kutuchief, Knight Foundation program director for Akron. Similar to the approach taken by city officials in recent years, the report's authors focused on downtown but also neighborhoods like North Hill, Highland Square, West Akron and others.

"So often, Akron is described as one place, but we have 24 different neighborhoods … and each of them needs something a little bit different," Kutuchief said.

The report was somewhat careful to suggest ways that the city can spur investment, without requiring large investments of capital by the city itself. That's in part because Akron, like most Midwestern cities, is not awash in cash, but also because the goal is to spur and favor private investment, said Kutuchief and Hollingsworth. Toward that end, the report suggests mostly strategies for cooperation, coordination and private/public partnership, with the possible exception of tax abatements.

Akron, which has seen its population drop from a peak of more than 290,000 in the 1960s to fewer than 200,000 today, needs more residents, city leaders recognize, to provide not only tax revenues but also employees for the city's businesses.

"I want to be the mayor that grows Akron's population again," Mayor Dan Horrigan said in announcing the city's own report on Feb. 6.

While the city has a long way to go, it has made some strides in recent years, and Akron is far from the blighted and abandoned shell of a city that it was in the 1980s and early '90s.

Developers have begun to invest in the city as well, including with new apartments and other housing stock.

Demand, so far, has outpaced the supply of available units as well, at least in and around downtown, as Crain's recently reported.

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Reasons to invest in Akron Ohio 4

North Hill’s foreign-born are nationally recognized as economic drivers in CNN report

By Doug Livingston
Beacon Journal staff writer

Published: February 9, 2017 - 03:34 PM | Updated: February 10, 2017 - 05:17 PM

ON THE WEB

In the midst of an international debate over welcoming or rejecting refugees, Akron’s North Hill is getting national attention as an example of how integration can drive the economy.

CNNMoney’s Wednesday report, “How immigrants helped save the economy of Akron, Ohio,” takes economic stock of North Hill’s outsized foreign-born population.

“The foreign-born people are helping us. They want to send their kids to school, they buy houses and they pay taxes,” Akron Mayor Dan Horrigan told CNN in the story, which includes interviews with local refugee families and business owners.

The economic impact of refugees, who are estimated to account for one in four foreign-born in North Hill, has been well-documented.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported that Ohio received nearly one in five Bhutanese refugees who came to America in 2015. Many settled in North Hill, which has become a national beacon attracting countless more refugees from Nepal, Bhutan and other southeast Asian and Middle Eastern countries upset by genocide or civil war.

A study released at the height of the presidential election by the Partnership for a New American Economy, a bipartisan group of 500 mayors and business leaders, found that foreign-born residents, including immigrants and refugees, added $207 million to housing values in Summit County from 2000 and 2013, and kept Akron’s population relatively flat from 2007 to 2013.

The CNN spotlight and other economic studies straddle an executive order signed at the end of January by President Donald Trump.

The order temporarily halts refugee intakes while giving Christians and non-Muslims persecuted in seven countries in the Middle East and Africa a path to enter America. Trump has said the temporary pause, which blocks normal travel from the seven Muslim-majority countries, is not a Muslim ban.

The CNN report also cites the libertarian Cato Institute, which found that low-income refugees are less likely than impoverished Americans to access government assistance, a trend Summit officials said holds true locally.

Reasons to invest in Akron Ohio 3

Akron Snow Angels grows from one-off to regular mission (photos)

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By Jennifer Conn, Akron reporter, cleveland.com
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on February 06, 2017 at 4:18 PM

AKRON, Ohio – Akron Snow Angels, which started as a one-off act of kindness before a snowstorm two years ago, is now an ongoing mission to provide homeless Akronites with food, supplies and warm clothing.

Erin Victor started the group with an impromptu decision in February 2015 to provide warmth for Akron's homeless. She hung scarves, hats, socks and long underwear from trees and fences around Akron with a note letting the homeless know the items were for them. Cleveland.com reported on the act, and the charity was launched.

With winter storm approaching, Akron woman hangs clothes for homeless with note 'You are loved'

With a winter storm approaching, an Akron woman decided to hang clothing out for the homeless.

"It was a total fluke; it was going to be a one-time thing," Victor said. "But the story was the catalyst. My phone was blown up with emails and calls. The community wanted to keep it going."

Here's how it works:

Now, with its mission to "Spread the Warmth," Akron Snow Angels is a well-oiled machine with an active board and a growing social media network. It gets donations of goods and cash from residents and groups around Akron to support missions that run from November through April, each serving about 200 homeless residents.

Goodwill of Akron provides hundreds of hats, scarves and gloves, while knitters across Akron make more.

ill Bacon Madden of Jilly's Music Room provides warehouse space to house the group's supplies and serve as a starting point for missions.ome items are bagged and tied to fences and trees around town, affixed with a Snow Angels message of caring and supportIn its first year, the group raised $27,000 and was awarded $14,000 from the Akron Halloween Charity Ball, which gives two Akron nonprofits the proceeds from each year's masquerade party.

Akron Snow Angels also takes requests, for sleeping bags, shoes or clothing for jobs. If the items aren't picked up, Snow Angels holds onto to them and brings them back on a subsequent mission.

"We get a lot of requests for boots," said Josh Troche, a Snow Angels board member who blogs about the group's missions on Learning by Helping.

What a mission looks like:

On Sunday, under a bright blue sky, about 50 Akron Snow Angels volunteers met at the warehouse and received assignments. About a dozen vehicles bearing large Akron Snow Angels magnets then headed up Market Street to Grace Park.

With many homeless awaiting the groups' arrival, the vehicles lined both sides of Park Street and set up stations, organized by cargo type, for attendees to browse.

One vehicle handled men's shirts and jackets, another carried kids' clothes and one had pants. One station had scarves, hats and gloves. Socks, shoes and belts, underwear, shopping bags, backpacks and sleeping bags were also available.

An SUV held bins of toiletries, while another hauled hand-made brown-bag meals decorated with hand-drawn hearts. A table was set up with hot coffee, water and food to go.

In addition to twice monthly missions to take food and supplies to Akron's homeless, Akron Snow Angels stays true to its roots, bagging hats, scarves and gloves and hanging them from fences and trees with notes of caring and support for the homeless to find.Akron Snow Angels

"It's a Godsend," said Kenneth England who heard about Snow Angels through a friend and came to get shoes, socks, underwear and toiletries. "It's really helpful and I'm appreciative."

Nearby, volunteers from the Peter Maurin Center for the homeless manned a table, and In One Piece Ministriesserved hot food donated every Sunday by the Holiday Inn of Fairlawn.

Who's volunteering:

Volunteers range from couples and college students to families with middle-school and high school kids.

Volunteer Gina Hornacek, who's been on about 15 Snow Angels missions, regularly brings her teenage daughter, Kamryn. Hornacek said she believes kids need exposure to less fortunate populations to better understand the real world.

"Living in the suburbs, they don't see this," she said.

The group keeps track of many of its regulars, knowing where they sleep and looking for check-ins via text or Facebook.

The group works two group missions per month and hosts Christmas in July, which provides free haircuts and medical trucks.

"My complete life has changed and I'm a better person because of it," Victor said. "The community is so warm and caring and there's so much good in people. My volunteers feel the same way."

In fact, the group recently benefited from birthday parties for two children and a 100-year-old woman who each asked that donations be made to Akron Snow Angels in lieu of gifts.

To donate cash or goods to Akron Snow Angels, or volunteer, visit its website. You can also follow Snow Angels events on its Facebook page. A GoFundMe campaignis also underway to help the group fund daily operations and expand its reach.