The City of Birmingham is being awarded a $20 million “Distressed Area Recompete Pilot Program grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA).
The award will go to the city and a coalition of partners committed to workforce investments in the four persistently distressed communities of North Birmingham, Northside, Smithfield, and Pratt.
The city is one of six recipients from a field of 22 finalists in what the EDA has called the most competitive grant program in agency history. Reinvest Birmingham’s Phase 2 funding application was submitted in April 2024.
The EDA measures distressed communities by the number of residents ages 25 to 54 who are not participating in the labor force. While a large portion of Birmingham qualifies as distressed, the city has employed an intentional place-based strategy that will focus on increasing labor force participation and access to necessary social support systems.
The city will leverage the $50 million Choice Neighborhood grant investment that was awarded to the Smithfield community in 2023.
“I was born in the Northside community, at the once thriving Carraway Hospital,” said Mayor Randall L Woodfin in a press release. “It has long since been a dream to see intentional reinvestment into this community that is home to men, women, and children who deserve an opportunity to fully participate in Birmingham’s prosperous and promising economy.”
Reinvest Birmingham will create and connect people to good jobs through five strategic component projects:
- Development of a workforce training center that is centrally located within the community
- Expansion of micro-transit options that ensure residents have affordable means of transportation to access training, employment, and essential services
- Establishment of a Child Care Center of Excellence that not only provides full-day, early learning programming for children and families but increases support for childcare workers and providers
- Creation of a Birmingham Black Business Entrepreneurship Center that serves as a physical front door for Black businesses to launch and scale operations
- Development of a governance model that ensures long-term sustainability for Reinvest Birmingham programming.
“Reinvest Birmingham is an intentional intersection of people and economic mobility,” said Coreata’ R. Houser, the Interim Recompete Plan Coordinator and Deputy Director for the Department of Innovation and Economic Opportunity. “North Birmingham has faced economic injustice for years and this investment will chart generational change. Our plan centers residents and will have responsive solutions that give them an opportunity to not only survive, but thrive in Birmingham!”
The City of Birmingham led the successful application through a coalition of partners including Lawson State Community College, AIDT, Central Six AlabamaWorks!, the Birmingham Jefferson County Transit Authority, the YMCA of Greater Birmingham, Childcare Resources, Prosper, and Regions Bank, and the Black Business Initiative.
This coalition was supported by more than 30 regional employers who helped to inform workforce demand for today and tomorrow, according to the City of Birmingham.
