How Coatesville can become an Entitlement City

At Monday’s Coatesville City Council Budget Workshop, Coatesville City Manager Harry Walker explained how Coatesville could become an Entitlement city and how the Coatesville could get grants directly instead of depending on the largess of the County and the State.

Coatesville is not an Entitlement City. Cities like Reading, Lancaster, Wilmington and other nearby cities are Entitlement cities. They get grants directly from HUD (Housing and Urban Development) and Brownfield Economic Development.

Coatesville City Manager Harry Walker:

“They (other cities) don’t have to go through the state; they don’t have to go through the county. The primary source of the money is normally Redevelopment block grants. That’s tied to HUD 108 and its tied to the Brownfield Economic District. They (grants) are a major source for redevelopment, economic development, anything. They are very broad purposed. But we don’t have access to it. We go through the County even though it’s based on our demographics. In other words if you’re a rich community you don’t get any of that money. It’s based on low income demographics. Although we have half the low income demographics in the county we get zero access to the money except for the largess of the county.

We have to become an Entitlement City. We are probably about a thousand people shy of the population numbers we need to qualify Coatesville as an Entitlement City. If we were just a little but larger, we would be able to break out and be able to get that money. And your budget problems would frankly go away.”

We need about 13,000 people. The last count was at the 2000 Census. We may already have 13,000 people. There is hope.

“HUD goes by the Census numbers. The 2010 Census will determine our population. We need the cooperation of people during the Census. Some people don’t open doors; there are a lot of problems. We need to cooperate in Coatesville as much as possible and get those (population) numbers bumped up as high as they can be. Because it affects funding not just in being an Entitlement City but is affects your funding across the board.”

You can listen to Mr. Walker here;
The first voice is Robin (Scott) Johnson:
http://www.box.net/shared/l2hrj7lxo6