U.S. Housing, Education Departments Put Schools at Center of Choice Neighborhoods

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Department (HUD) has announced that five cities will receive the first-ever Choice Neighborhoods implementation grants. Boston, Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco, and Seattle will be the focus of the new strategy to support local leaders in transforming high-poverty, distressed neighborhoods into neighborhoods of opportunity.

The Choice Neighborhoods initiative is designed to include an unprecedented focus on ensuring access to quality educational opportunities. HUD worked closely with the U.S. Department of Education to develop the program, which requires Choice applicants to have an education strategy that “expands access to high-quality early learning programs, schools, and education programs that will improve key outcomes for children and youth in the neighborhoods.”

Choice Neighborhoods is linked closely to the Department of Education’s Promise Neighborhoods program, which supports cradle-to-career services designed to improve educational outcomes for students in distressed neighborhoods.

Both programs are central components of the White House Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative, which is designed to align federal housing, education, justice, financial asset building, and health programs with the overarching goal of transforming neighborhoods of concentrated poverty into communities with the affordable housing, safe streets and good schools.

In Boston’s Choice implementation site, the housing redevelopment strategy is a key element of Boston’s Circle of Promise Initiative, a comprehensive community integration plan to transform public education in the City. Similarly, Boston Public Schools plan to focus on improving instruction in schools within the Choice footprint through aggressive interventions such as extended learning, improved data integration, and community engagement. The Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative received a Promise Neighborhoods planning grant for part of the same neighborhood and plan to leverage the Choice funding to bring partners such as ReadBoston, Project R.I.G.H.T. and the City of Boston together to better coordinate student-focused literacy, health and violence-prevention programs.

For more information, please visit:

City of Boston: Circle of Promise

Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, Boston

Boston Redevelopment Authority: ReadBoston

Project RIGHT (Rebuild and Improve Grove Hall Together)

Boston Public Schools

City of Boston

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development: Choice Neighborhoods

U.S. Department of Education: Promise Neighborhoods

White House Office of Urban Affairs: Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative