Promise Neighborhoods Program Gets Big Boost in Obama Budget

President Obama today proposed boosting the budget for Promise Neighborhoods, the grants program for antipoverty projects modeled on the Harlem Children’s Zone, to $150-million in the 2012 fiscal year.

The proposal marks a big increase from current spending but would provide less than the president proposed last year.

Promise Neighborhoods awarded $10 million in planning grants to 21 projects around the country in the 2010 fiscal year. Mr. Obama proposed upping the budget to $210-million in fiscal year 2011, with most of the money paying for grants to help nonprofit groups put their projects into effect. However, Congress has not yet adopted a 2011 budget, so spending has been frozen at 2010 levels.

Congress did not fully back his 2011 request: a House subcommittee proposed spending only $60-million and a Senate committee only $20-million.

See The Chronicle’s coverage of a Promise Neighborhoods project in Washington.