Lowell housing trust urged to move quickly on $3.3M in ARPA funds amid complex rules and tight deadlines

The City of Lowell Affordable Housing Trust Fund on Sept. 17 discussed how to spend $3,300,000 in federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money and heard repeated cautions from staff and outside advisers about regulatory complexity and tight spending deadlines.

The discussion matters because federal deadlines limit how long the city has to obligate and then spend ARPA funds, and missteps could trigger clawbacks. Jessica Fanacio, an ARPA compliance adviser, told the trustees that “the potential risk of not using funds because we go down a certain road... get into contracts with this funding, and then aren’t able to spend it and we’re not able to pivot later is a very extreme risk for this set of funds, the 3,300,000.”

Board administrator George Galores provided a budget breakdown: “The fund itself has $3,300,000 in it,” and, after noting additional revenue sources, said the total accounting left a budget balance of $3,305,000 after $10,000 in operating costs. Galores identified two other small revenue items: roughly $110,000 from CPA and $5,000 from a vacant storefront fee.

Trust members and advisers reviewed several broad choices for using the money. Fanacio described three operational models the…