Bayh helps Gary seek $25 million for demolitions (Post-Tribune)
Gary seeks $25 million to demolish buildings
July 1, 2009
By Jon Seidel, Post-Tribune staff writer
GARY -- Ducking through a torn screen door into a collapsing home filled with beer bottles, U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh and Mayor Rudy Clay led the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's deputy secretary Tuesday on a tour of a dilapidated neighborhood in Gary.
"We didn't pick this out," Bayh told Ron Sims as the federal officials looked at the broken windows and debris covering the floor. "We just walked down the street."
Sims inspected the neighborhood near East 5th Avenue and Georgia Street, peeking into empty homes and speaking to residents before participating later in a roundtable discussion at City Hall.
The secretary made his visit as Gary is preparing an application to HUD for $25 million from the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program. The money would be used to tear down more than 900 abandoned homes and 200 empty commercial buildings in the city.
"The president of the United States cares about issues like this," Bayh said, "and he is not unfamiliar with Gary."
Sims, who is six weeks into his new job at HUD, said Bayh asked him to visit Gary before his confirmation, and Sims promised the senator he would do so.
"He said, 'I want you to believe in Gary, Ind., as much as I believe in Gary,'" Sims said of Bayh.