CSV staff has been active on many formal and ad hoc committees designed to improve the central city areas of Flint, MI.  One such committee is working to locate a grocery store in downtown in 2008

In 2005 CSVNP joined with the Genesee County Land Bank Authority to purchase the Berridge Hotel and remodel it into condominium/lofts as a part of the overall plan to improve the 3rd Avenue corridor between the University of Michigan-Flint and Kettering University. This troubled property is in the Carriage Town Historic District.

In 2004/05 CSVNP assisted two private developers in obtaining grants from the Commercial Economic Development Fund of the Community Foundation of Greater Flint. The first was $16,000 to aid in the adaptive reuse of the Stockton House in the Grand Traverse District Neighborhood. The historic home of Col. Thomas Stockton has become an office center for an architectural firm and other small businesses. The second was $26,500 for the adaptive reuse of a neighborhood eyesore into a viable commercial building at the corner of W. Court St. and Ann Arbor St.

In 2002, CSVNP obtained a grant for a comprehensive study and strategy development for commercial development in the West Court St. corridor from Saginaw to the Thread Creek.

In 1998 CSVNP served as a sponsor with a for-profit developer who purchased the 176 unit Arbor Village Apartments, located just south of the Fairfield Village Neighborhood Association, allowing for the rehabilitation and upgrade of this low income apartment complex through the use of Low Income Housing Tax Credits.

CSVNP has also been awarded and administered more than $3,000,000.00 in Federal CDBG & HOME grants to rehabilitate homes, apartments and commercial buildings in the 4 neighborhoods over the last 10 years.  In 2006 CSVNP implemented a CDBG grant of $50,000 from the City of Flint to correct exterior code violations on 6 homes in the Central Park, Fairfield and Carriage Town neighborhoods and a grant of $25,000 from the Ruth Mott Foundation to correct exterior code violations and exterior beautification of several homes in the Grand Traverse Neighborhood District.

Our CSV Neighborhood Program Director is also active in the following community programs:

• Flint Genesee County Neighborhood Roundtable, a coalition of individuals neighborhood associations & agencies with a vested interest in improving Flint & Genesee County.
• Citizens Nuisance Task Force, a citizen-based effort to provide a structure to exchange ideas and develop programs to make Flint a more desirable place to live that is free of litter, trash, yard waste, refuse, unkept lawns and graffiti.
• Greater Flint Cultural Plan Neighborhood Task Force, a 2005 countywide effort to create and implement a plan to increase the involvement by all citizens in the arts and culture.
• Flint/Genesee County Community Challenge is a Community Foundation of Greater Flint sponsored program to create new ways for citizen involvement in the public agenda, including Critical Outcome # 3 , which involves making the city a clean and attractive place to live.
• Harwood Institute Public Leadership School is a C.S. Mott Foundation sponsored program to train & certify 14 Flint faculty members to support other leaders in making a difference in public life through civic engagement.