News Release

BUSH ADMINISTRATION AWARDS $10.4 MILLION IN GRANTS TO 13 HISTORICALLY BLACK COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES
Since 1991 HUD has provided $59 million to HBCUs

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson and Education Secretary Margaret Spellings today announced 13 historically Black colleges and universities would receive $10.4 million to help revitalize neighborhoods near their campuses. The HBCU grants, administered by HUD’s Office of University Partnerships, range from $429,609 to $2 million.

"These grants will help ensure these colleges continue to educate many of the nation's African American physicians, lawyers and business leaders while also being able to revitalize the communities that surround them," Jackson said. “Throughout the nation, we have seen HBCUs breathe life into struggling college towns and blighted urban neighborhoods."

HUD’s HBCU program funds grantees to carry out projects designed primarily to benefit low- and moderate-income residents, help prevent or eliminate slums or blight, or meet urgent community development needs in their localities. The grants can be used for activities such as: acquiring real estate; demolition; homeownership assistance to low- and moderate income persons; special economic development activities; and rehabilitation of residential, commercial or industrial buildings to correct code violations.

Since 1991, HUD has awarded more than $59 million to HBCUs to stimulate economic and community development activities.

Recipients of today’s grants are:

The HBCU Program is one of several initiatives administered by HUD's Office of University Partnerships (OUP). Established in 1994, OUP is a catalyst for partnering colleges and universities with their communities in a shared search for answers to pressing urban problems. More information about OUP and its programs is available on the Internet at www.oup.org.

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