Middlebury

Housing issues dominated a legal clinic over the weekend in Akron’s Middlebury neighborhood, with people seeking free help on how to handle everything from foreclosures to evictions.

The clinic was organized by Community Legal Aid and included more than a dozen attorneys who volunteered their time to work with close to 70 people, mostly from Summit County.

Small Akron businesses will receive grants to renovate their façades through a program that targets neglected areas for improvement.

The grants come from Great Streets Akron, an initiative that selects 10 historic neighborhood-business districts in Akron for efforts to improve vitality. The areas include Maple Valley, West Hill, North Hill, Copley Road East, Middlebury, Firestone Park, Ellet, Wallhaven, Goodyear Heights and Kenmore.

Three Akron neighborhoods are each getting $240,000 grants to develop ideas to attract business and residents.

Kenmore, Middlebury and North Hill were all identified earlier this year as areas that could be primed to grow with just a small push to get the housing and job markets moving again.

To do that, the grants from the Knight Foundation aim to give neighborhood development groups the resources to hire staff and explore civic engagement.