LANSING — Northern Michigan lawmakers have requested tens of millions of dollars for local project grants, including a Traverse City youth facility and housing grant programs for the Northwest Lower Peninsula.
Yarrow Brown, executive director of Housing North, says her organization is requesting $10 million to help establish a revolving loan program to assist with development in the region.
“We have a process where projects would be vetted and brought to our full board for approval,” she said. “We estimate, and we’re tracking projects in the region, and so we know that there’s at least 3500 projects in progress that would maybe need the support to get across the finish line.”
Brown says the nonprofit has been operating a smaller version of the program, with success so far.
“We don‘t have 10 million, but we have about 300,000 that we’ve been revolving and supporting projects on a small scale,” she said.
Traverse City Area Public Schools have made a request for $10 million to fund a new multipurpose after-school facility.
“Areas for youth athletics or robotics or tutoring,” said Dr. John VanWagoner, superintendent of TCAPS. “This would mix in that with opportunities with our local sports teams, like our youth soccer, youth baseball or youth softball.”
So far, there aren‘t many specifics on what the project might look like.
VanWagoner says that the facility would serve communities around the Northwest Lower with activities usually reserved for more densely populated regions.
“We’re trying to be, as the largest school district in Northern Michigan, and especially in Northwest Michigan, to be able to have a place and an opportunity for our kids from our local area — but we’ll even expand opportunities for kids across our region,” he said.
The requests are part of the more than $420 million in applications that were submitted by Northern Michigan representatives.
Lawmakers around the state have requested over $3 billion in grants for their communities.
VanwWagoner says that Northern Michigan has seen projects go to areas with higher populations over the years.
“When we send money to the state, especially from Northern Michigan, I think sometimes we see a lot of projects go, you know — happen in the Metro Detroit area or Metro Grand Rapids area, and we often get left out,” he said. “Our kids and our community deserves the exact same thing, you know that all of Michigan does”