Advocacy group pushes to revive housing program

The Neighborhood Preservation Consultant Program was gutted by loss of federal funds

Bill de Blasio
Bill de Blasio

The Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development is vowing to fight for the Neighborhood Preservation Consultant Program, calling it “necessary.”

The program, which was cut by 72 percent during the Bloomberg administration due to loss of federal funding, will get $580,000 in the city’s budget. The program’s goal — to identify properties with poor living conditions that put tenants and neighborhoods at risk — is similar to that of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. HPD values the Neighborhood Preservation Consultant Program, because it fosters partnerships with tenant groups and leaders who often have a better sense of what’s going on in different communities.

Benjamin Dulchin, the executive director of the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development, said that the program was crucial and a productive resource for more than 30 years to fight poverty and revitalize neighborhoods.

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NPCP funding is distributed among multiple nonprofits in the city. [Crain’s] — Claire Moses