From the BCCT:
Group hopes grant revitalizes First Ward
By: DANNY ADLER
Bucks County Courier Times
A nonprofit organization hopes a $750,000 grant can add services to Morrisville's First Ward, an area challenged with absentee landlords, blight and increasing poverty levels.
The Bucks County Housing Group recently applied for the five-year implementation grant from the Wachovia Regional Foundation. Two years ago, the housing group received $100,000 for a planning study of the First Ward, which is made up of three neighborhoods south of West Bridge Street.
"The implementation grant will not fund bricks and mortar, but it will fund services and planning tools that will help primarily the First Ward, but also the borough itself," said Nancy Szamborski, the housing group's executive director.
According to the strategic plan drafted in December 2008, the First Ward struggles with absentee landlords, noise, traffic, trash, blight, vagrancy, homelessness and increasing poverty.
The money could help the First Ward achieve its primary goals: providing the area with a sense of identity; keeping it safe and clean; increasing access to social, transportation and government services; and promoting the ward as a good place to live and do business.
Szamborski told borough council Monday night that the money would be used to create a neighborhood association and crime watch, a community center and a Web site, while funding grassroots improvement projects such as a "Yard of the Month" program and community events.
The funds also could create two new jobs. The first would be a full-time community builder to follow through on longer-term goals such as renovating the Delaware River waterfront area and Delaware Canal, as well as serve as an advocate for the ward to the borough. The second would be a part-time community service coordinator, who would organize services and events, coordinate with other organizations and maintain the community center schedule.
