Abby Hoover
Managing Editor

The Kansas City city council approved 210 ReBuild KC proposals totaling nearly $15 million. The City’s Neighborhood Services Department reviewed 1,215 proposals, totaling more than 4,000 hours of review by city staff, before presenting the final list for approval.

ReBuild KC grant awards will help rebuild neighborhoods with projects and programs across Kansas City. The awards were given in the following categories: home repair with 141 projects totaling $1 million, infrastructure with 8 projects totaling $1.07 million, sustainability with 11 projects totaling $703,000, community programs with 36 projects totaling $5.9 million, housing with 8 projects totaling $3.5 million, and other development and investment projects totaling $3.1 million. A complete list of ReBuild KC grant recipients is available on the City’s website.

“I’m thrilled about the passage of Rebuild KC, which will invest millions into neighborhood organizations and resources in every corner of Kansas City,” Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said. “Rebuild KC shows our commitment to ground-up solutions, listening to the public in how we improve our communities. I’m proud of the hundreds of volunteers who will help make these investments long-term assets for our families and neighbors.”

Administered by the Neighborhood Services Department, ReBuild KC provided a unique opportunity for organizations and individuals to build better, stronger neighborhoods. ReBuild KC is using American Rescue Plan (ARP) and city funding sources to finance a variety of applicant-requested neighborhood improvements.

“Our staff worked hard and did an excellent job examining a number of very well-written and deserving proposals,” said Neighborhood Services Director Forest Decker. “So many of the submissions were well thought out and deserving of consideration as ways to improve neighborhoods across the city.”

This initiative is part of the City’s plans to shift the department to a more solution-oriented team that is responsive to residents.

“Unfortunately, the funds that are available will only allow a small percentage of the overall applications to receive funds, so there are many outstanding applications that will not be able to receive funds through this grant program,” Decker said. “However, we plan to continue working with many of these great applicants to identify resources and other possible funding opportunities. Our Office of Community Engagement will work with the promising applicants that were unsuccessful in receiving ReBuild grant funds.”

In Historic Northeast, neighborhood-focused nonprofit Mattie Rhodes Center received three ReBuild KC grants for an outdoor learning pavilion, a violence prevention program and for improving housing in Northeast.

“We are thrilled,” said Scott Wagner, director of Northeast Alliance Together (NEAT), based at Mattie Rhodes Center in the Historic Northeast. “The ReBuild KC grants create new capacity for our neighborhoods and non-profit community to fulfill their missions to make Kansas City a better place to live, work and play.”

For its Northeast-focused housing repair program, Mattie Rhodes is teaming up with Jerusalem Farm, an intentional Catholic community based in Pendleton Heights that has been doing low cost home repair work in Northeast, but plans to expand its services.

“This will be a partnership between Mattie Rhodes and Jerusalem Farm that will pair up Codes Enforcement with Minor Home Repair,” Wagner said. “We had previously done a similar pilot project in the Indian Mound Neighborhood in 2020 where 311 cases came to us and they were worked on by our staffs.”

Wagner said 80% of those cases were resolved through education of expectations to the homeowner, or when more substantial work was needed but could not be performed by the homeowner due to financial or physical constraints, they would be performed by Jerusalem Farm. The remaining 20% would be referred back to the City for further enforcement.

“This program would take these same concepts and expand them out throughout the Northeast,” Wagner said. “We would also use this as an opportunity to see if further services were needed for the occupant, services that we are used to providing at Mattie Rhodes.”

The organizations are hopeful to have everything ready to go by the beginning of 2023, and they are trying to figure out how best to maximize the time frame of the program.

The Lykins neighborhood, leading the way in neighborhood repair, blight remediation, and infill housing, received $191,000 for the Lykins Focused Community Development Project.

Healing House, whose 20th anniversary of addiction recovery work in Northeast is approaching this fall, received $200,000 for community programs for its Old Hall at St. John and Elmwood. The group is in the process of renovating two other buildings along St. John to house businesses.

At 12th and Euclid, EarlystART, formerly United Inner City Services, received $175,000 to renovate the historic Sarah Rector Mansion to be used for community and neighborhood programming.

North Blue Ridge Neighborhood Association received $16,000 for a neighborhood garden and orchard to increase the community’s sustainability.

The Don Bosco Center, who in recent years completed the renovation of its community center, received $60,000 for equipment to bolster youth programming.

A Boys & Girls Club is coming to the Historic Northeast thanks in part to a $75,000 grant. The Northeast News will have more details on this project and others as they unfold.

In total, $1.2 million is coming to Northeast through ReBuild KC to strengthen the community in a variety of ways. Recipients are in the process of finalizing contracts with the City. ReBuild KC projects will be scheduled for completion over the next two years. For more information on Historic Northeast’s ReBuild KC Grants, listen to this week’s episode of the Northeast Newscast with guest Forest Decker.