This isn’t Peoria’s year for winning grant awards. After losing out to Morton for some IDOT money, Peoria got more bad news — this time from the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS). A recent Issues Update reports:

In April 2009, the City submitted a funding application for $9.3 million in NSP funds to the Illinois Department of Human Services. The NSP funds were granted to the State as part of the early federal “stimulus” efforts, and the State decided to pass the funds through to local governments and agencies.

The City received notice on September 2, that our application was not selected for funding. We will follow up with the State to determine the deficiencies with the application.

These funds would have been used for down payment assistance for 33 new home buyers, the purchase-rehabilitation-sale of 5 existing housing units, the demolition of 71 deteriorated housing units, and the construction of 47 new housing units in older neighborhoods.

According to the IDHS, “The Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) provides grants to purchase foreclosed or abandoned homes and to rehabilitate, resell, or redevelop these homes in order to stabilize neighborhoods and stem the decline of house values of neighboring homes.” The program awards are listed on the IDHS website. Whereas Peoria requested a $9.3 million grant, the largest grant awarded was $4.833 million to 55th & State Redevelopment, LLC, in Chicago. Other recipients included the cities of Champaign ($1.395M), Rock Island ($3.133M), Quincy ($1.9M), and East St. Louis ($2.5M).