From the Warehouse District to Tremont, artists have been harbingers of neighborhood comebacks. Now a new program aims to use artist-based development as the centerpiece for one lucky neighborhood's turnaround.

The Community Partnership for Arts and Culture (CPAC) on Monday announced the launch of Artists in Residence, a new program that seeks to create improvements in one city neighborhood by offering incentives for artists who live and work there.

The program is being funded in part through a $250,000 grant from Leveraging Investments in Creativity's Creative Communities Challenge Grant Program, a one-time competitive grant program made possible through the support of the Kresge Foundation. 

"Artists play a key role in the strength and vitality of Cleveland neighborhoods," said Tom Schorgl, CPAC President, in a press release. "By leveraging artists' skills and the extraordinary leadership of Cleveland's community development sector, we will work to make Cleveland's neighborhoods even more creative, more sustainable and more equitable."

The two-year, $500,000 pilot program will provide a small loan program for artists buying or rehabbing homes in the target area, a small grant program to support artists' work in carrying out community-based projects, and artist homeownership services such as credit counseling and saving programs.

A panel of arts, community development and planning experts will select the target neighborhood through a competitive process. Community development corporations serving Cleveland neighborhoods can apply through April 25th. CPAC hopes to announce the winning neighborhood by July 1st.

CPAC is a nonprofit arts and culture service organization that works to strengthen Greater Cleveland's arts and culture sector. Some of its programs include the Artist as an Entrepreneur Institute, a business training course addressing the needs of working artists, and From Rust Belt to Artist Belt, a conference series that examines the role of artists in the redevelopment of industrial cities.

Source: Community Partnership for Arts and Culture
Writer: Lee Chilcote