Neighborhood Council Makes Many Improvements

SPOKANE – A Spokane area, is using a neighborhood council to making some improvements to make their a better place to live.

The East Central Spokane neighborhood council has put in benches, trash cans, and street lamps throughout several streets in an effort to make their area a great place to live.

While things like benches and street lamps seem small, they do a lot to improve the over all feel of the neighborhood.

“We worked for a number of years just to get a cross walk here where the school crossing is,” resident Jerry Numbers said.

One of the most important improvements the council made was fixing their sidewalks.

“We put a lot of money into improving the sidewalks throughout the neighborhood,” Numbers said.

With all of these improvements, the neighborhood already looks better, but Numbers says it just the start of the improvements here in the East Central area.     

“If you drive the streets around here you see the many house the have been improved in the last ten years,” Numbers said.

Numbers has been on the neighborhood council for many years. He says every year they help home owners get grant money to do re-habilitation work on their houses.

“With the re-hab program, a person that doesn’t have the ability of paying for it themselves, doesn’t have the ability to get a bank loan, can get up to $25 to $30 to help make their home more safe,” Numbers said.

East Central Spokane is an older neighborhood with houses that do need repairs.

“Up in this area there are some 1800 homes,” Numbers said. “So many of these houses built in the early 1900’s have inadequate electrical service the windows are bad, need windows replaced sometimes siding.”

While he admits these improvements didn’t happen over night, Numbers says all you have to do is drive through the neighborhood to notice the change.

“Ten years ago I don’t think the neighborhood was bad, but again the improvements in the last ten years have been substantial,” Numbers said.

City officials say they are behind the neighborhood councils and want to help in anyway they can.

There are 27 councils in the city, and every body can get involved. All you need to do is call the city to find out which neighborhood council you belong to and how you can get in touch with them.