The Safety Lighting Energy Efficiency Program (SLEEP), originally designed to improve outdoor lighting and security in the Garden Hills neighborhood in 2019, got new life after city planners went back to the drawing board.
“With the safety concerns, with the environmental concerns, the lack of streetlights, the increase in crime, this was kind of like a short-term solution,” Jennifer Carlson, neighborhood programs manager for the city of Champaign, said about the pilot program in an interview with CU-CitizenAccess.
The modified program was voted on and passed in the fall of 2021 and is set to start the next year. As a result, Garden Hills went through an entire security makeover between January 2022 and December 2023.
By installing 289 yard lights, 320 exterior entry point lights and 320 video doorbell cameras, the program allowed the community to keep a more illuminated watch.
In the two-year period, 383 households participated in the SLEEP program.
“The way we were delivering that program in 2019 and 2020, it was too burdensome for the community members,” Carlson explained. “Once we said, ‘Hey, we’re not gonna make you give us all your info’ … people were more on board.”
With the program’s success in Garden Hills, the county planning commission implemented the program in other neighborhoods such as Dobbins Downs in Champaign, Scottswood in Urbana and Pleasant Acres in Rantoul.
The revised program loosened the application process and increased available funds from $140,000 to $749,000. Carlson said much of the newer funds didn’t require as cumbersome an application process and the increased participation was reflective of that. Each participant could receive up to $1,900 for the improvements under the revisions.
“Federal funds had all those regulatory requirements,” Carlson said. “In 2020 when we got American Rescue Plan Act funds … it made it much easier to access the program.”
Three years after piloting the initial SLEEP program, the modified program’s announcement encouraged people of any income bracket — so long as they are a resident in Garden Hills — to apply in order to get security improvements.
Program part of response to longtime neighborhood issues
SLEEP was originally announced on April 8, 2019, with applications for the program closing at the end of July that same year. The city’s goal for this program was “designed to benefit homeowners and single-family renters,” in the Garden Hills neighborhood district.
Garden Hills was chosen as the first area the SLEEP program was implemented in due to its lack of general infrastructure and to better illuminate streets in order to mitigate crime.
Residents said the neighborhood had been neglected for years. They pointed chronic problems such as flooding and the lack of sidewalks and streetlights. On March 5, 2019, the Champaign City Council passed a resolution consisting of a $50 million drainage improvement project addressing much of the community’s concerns.
A 2019 snapshot of Champaign’s web page on SLEEP, accessed via the Internet Archive, states that the applicant needed to be at or below 80% of the median family income, $44,550 in 2020, and submit proof of all sources of income in the past six months.
Qualified households were initially granted up to a maximum of $5,000 to be spent on home improvement. But only 14 households received the initial SLEEP grants. Out of the $140,000 in funding, even if each household got the maximum grant of $5,000, only half of the initial funding was awarded.