Hammond Mayor Tom McDermott Jr. is touting the city's efforts to add housing and clean up the environment, thanks to federal COVID-19 money.
The city council has allocated three million dollars in American Rescue Plan funding for infrastructure to build a residential development on the former Clark High School athletic fields. During Wednesday's Mayor's Night Out event at the Lost Marsh Clubhouse, McDermott said there's a major need for single-family homes for young families.
"We want to focus on town homes fronting Calumet. So if you look out your front door, you would see Wolf Lake, basically, and you'd probably pull in from behind the town home. And behind that, would be single-family," McDermott explained.
Meanwhile, another four million dollars was allocated for the remediation of lead-contaminated properties. While these efforts are typically handled by the federal government, McDermott said the city took on the burden to speed up the timeline.
"We're cleaning your property and bringing it back to the standards it was, as though it never happened. Like if you had two trees and we had to knock down your two trees, we'd dig out like two feet of dirt, replant two trees free of charge, and then we'd give you a letter from [the Hammond Department of Environmental Management] that says we cleaned your property," the mayor said.
So far, about 10 properties have been cleaned up as part of the program.
