More than $1.4 million in federal Community Development Block Grant money will be used to rehabilitate homes, pave streets and enforce property codes in the city’s Second Ward and buy a new fire engine.

The city’s 2013 CDBG program will focus on four neighborhoods in the Second Ward — Douglass, Harlan Park, Meadowlawn and Prospect, according to Kyle Fuchs, Middletown’s HUD program administrator. Roughly $420,000 in CDBG funds will be spent on street paving.

The work is needed, too, according to some residents.

“We could use some street paving,” said Doris Amos, who lives on Delaware Avenue.

Virginia Washington, of Curtis Street, said there are several vacant houses in her neighborhood that “need something done for them.

“They are just falling apart,” she said. Cleaning up the neighborhood would help boost its image because Washington feels “it’s just a little bit dangerous.”

The CDBG program is one of the longest, continuously run programs at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The program provides annual grants on a formula basis to 1,209 states and local governments. It focuses on ensuring decent and affordable housing, providing services to a community’s most vulnerable and creating jobs through the expansion and retention of businesses.

Fuchs said some activities for the year include emergency repair services, which are completed through the nonprofit, People Working Cooperatively, and the city’s VIP residential rehab program, where grants are used to pay for materials and volunteers donate their labor.

The city’s action plan addresses a few other strategies to improve the community, Fuchs said.

“One of the overall strategies in the consolidated plan is affordable housing,” he said. “The goal of that strategy is to retain safe and affordable housing by providing emergency repair assistance, down payment assistance through the HOME grant, and continued code enforcement efforts.”

Another strategy is to address homeless needs, which is done through the Butler County Homeless Coalition. The coalition, which Community Revitalization Director Doug Adkins is a member, meets monthly to discuss countywide needs for the homeless and at-risk homeless.

Community development is another key strategy.

“This is includes establishing healthy neighborhoods,” Fuchs said. “Some of the details include demolition under the Moving Ohio Forward grant, public services, infrastructure — specifically street paving, public safety improvements — specifically the purchase of a new fire engine — and fair housing activities.”

Middletown City Council approved the action plan Tuesday night, however, residents are still able to make comments until March 10 at the MidPointe Library on South Broad Street, the Middletown Senior Citizens Center on Central Avenue, the Community Revitalization Department at the city building at One Donham Plaza or online at cityofmiddletown.org.

A second public hearing for the city’s action plan will be in June at City Council chambers.