Wells Fargo Grants $10,000 to the Riviera Beach CDC Neighborhood RECLAIM Revitalization Project

RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. - Feb. 5, 2020 - PRLog -- The Riviera Beach Community Development Corporation (CDC), champion of the affordable-housing arm of the multifaceted approach to revitalizing Riviera Beach, Florida, has begun Phase I of its Neighborhood RECLAIM Project with generous funding help from Wells Fargo bank.

In cooperation with the City of Riviera Beach, Palm Beach County, the Riviera Beach Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA), and others, the CDC has partnered with the City of Riviera Beach Reentry Program in order to acquire residential properties, renovate and sell them to low-income first-time homebuyers. The Riviera Beach Neighborhood RECLAIM Project will initially focus on 10 derelict homes in the Riviera Beach Heights neighborhood with the first property located at 950 West 1^st Street.

Some 200 of the properties in the Riviera Beach Heights neighborhood are in a dilapidated condition. The City of Riviera Beach and Palm Beach County are apportioning various parcels to the Neighborhood RECLAIM program. In addition to renovating the homes and debris removal, Neighborhood RECLAIM will return the properties to the tax rolls via the new first-time homebuyers.

"We are very grateful for the generous help that Wells Fargo has granted Neighborhood RECLAIM and the CDC," says Scott Evans, President of the Riviera Beach Community Development Corporation and Interim Executive Director of the Riviera Beach CRA. "Without generous assistance from our partner organizations and grantors, we would not have been able to develop the five houses to date nor forge ahead as we are in Riviera Beach Heights."

The Revitalization of Riviera Beach Heights

Riviera Beach Heights is the most challenged neighborhood in the Community Redevelopment District, and $3.5 million has been committed to its revitalization and mitigating internal and external forces negatively affecting the neighborhood. The CRA Board adopted the Riviera Beach Heights Neighborhood Revitalization Plan, Phase I, in 2012, and the plan's No. 1 priority is to address the neighborhood's many derelict and abandoned properties.

In Palm Beach County, the median price of housing is approximately $375,000. In Riviera Beach, this number is closer to $250,000, which is still out of reach for many potential low-income homebuyers. The CDC with programs like Neighborhood RECLAIM is working diligently to tackle this problem one property and one neighborhood at a time.

For more information, see the Riviera Beach CDC website at http://rivierabeachcdc.org/ and the Riviera Beach CRA website at http://www.rbcra.com/.