A new federal initiative designed to fund infrastructure, development, technical assistance, and work training, among other things, for cities with defined poverty pockets, may soon be handing over to El Paso some $50 million in grant funding.
The Distressed Area Recomplete program is designed to target some of the most economically hard-hit communities in the country.
When funding outlays for the program were announced late last year, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo paraphrased President Biden in remarking that “no community in America will be left behind as we continue to grow our nation’s economy and invest in American workers.”
El Paso has now been placed on a list comprised of nearly two dozen finalist cities and rural areas, out of an original applicant list of five hundred, eligible to receive the funding.
In a statement, El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser said the potential big funding is but a “first step in strengthening our long-term economic growth.”
But equally important, continued the Mayor, is providing the “opportunity to find good paying jobs” that can transform a family’s trajectory as it “revolutionizes our community.”
The current finalists for a program that is expected to have a two-phase lifespan include both state and local governments, as well as Tribal governments and economic development districts.
According to the parameters of the Distressed Area Recomplete program, El Paso, by making it to the first phase list is now automatically invited to refine their application once the second phase of the project is fully underway.
Of the 22 phase one finalists, only one other proposed project is based in the West: the Santa Cruz River and Sonoran, which could see $50 million invested in revitalizing mostly impoverished communities located along Interstate 19.
By Garry Boulard
