Mayor Jeffrey CSAT says he's proud of the turnaround in the city's financial standing.

I came into office in 2016 and I immediately knew the best thing for the city was to go back 47th.

Hazleton was designated as financially distressed under the municipality's Recovery Program Act 47 in 2017.

In May of this year, the city terminated its distressed status as a result of effectively using the program to make significant progress.

Mayor CSAT says long term investments were made since he took office.

Those include two new playgrounds, one specifically designed for children with disabilities and many other park projects.

We want to be able to create an atmosphere where people can go with their families and have some time off.

Some of the city, the places that you live in the city, you don't have a backyard.

You don't have somewhere where you could sit with the family.

And that was important to try to find that atmosphere that made everyone happy.

Other investments target public safety.

We brought a flock camera system, which is like a license plate reading camera system that encircles the city so nobody could come in or out of the city without being recognized.

So if any car is stolen looking for an Amber Alert, if somebody is wanted in the crime, police are instantaneously notified, you know, via text.

You know, we invested in a gunshot location system, which is part of the same camera system.

So if a gunshot goes off, all the police force are instantly notified.

The general location of where the noise came from, you know, and then we were also so far behind, you know, with some of our buildings taking being, becoming a little more dilapidated, our roads were horrendous.

Recreation facilities were all in bad shape.

So, you know, stuff like that, you really need to dig down and, you know, to be able to put back together.

And we were very successful doing some of that through this time.

The city is growing, the tax base is growing, the population is growing.

I believe we were the only city in Pennsylvania to increase last year.

We increased by 24.9% population.

The population boom has amplified the housing shortage.

The mayor says that is the biggest issue the city faces.

The housing stock that's here is older.

A lot of the apartments that are available are either homes being converted into, you know, smaller apartments.

A lot of them are done illegally and they're very unsafe.

And what's driving that is the high cost of living.

You know, apartments used to be five, $600.

You know, now with the influx of people, you know, the same apartment may be going for nine 1100.

One of the focus of the city has is trying to find developer cars that will bring in safe living conditions.