Washington County Board of Supervisors members heard a summary on June 20, 2025, of the county
s current Community Development Block Grant housing rehabilitation program and were told county staff intends to apply for up to $750,000 in CDBG funds for the 2025 program year.

The program has addressed "critical health, safety, and accessibility needs," county staff said during a required Office of Community Renewal briefing, and officials framed the proposed application as a continuation of ongoing work to rehabilitate substandard housing for low-income residents.

Nicole, a county staff presenter, told the board the program recently completed full gut rehabilitation and asbestos abatement on a severely deteriorated Whitehall home occupied by a low-income family with a permanently disabled child and two working parents. She said the county also demolished a blighted former gas station in Greenwich and replaced it with a modular home for a disabled adult, her child, and her working husband.

"Through Washington County's current CDBG housing rehabilitation program, we've addressed some critical health, safety, and accessibility needs," Nicole said. "In addition to that, between ARPA, Restore, and HOME funding this year alone, we are able to leverage and complete 23 additional projects across Washington County, including 17 repairs and rehabilitations, 2 accessibility modifications, and 5 modular manufactured home demolition and replacements."

Nicole said all assisted homes this year have served households earning below 80% of area median income; she gave a rough household-income range for Washington County this year of about $53,000 up to $93,000. She also told the board the program's wait list has grown from 47 families at the time of the earlier application to "over 100" and said the county
s goal is to reduce the wait list by roughly 30 percent in a year ("knocking off 27 families this year," she said).

County staff noted the flexibility of CDBG funds for covering undiscovered conditions found mid-project, and credited Danielle Drinkwine, described in the briefing as a county code enforcement officer, for coordinating with projects when additional code issues are discovered. "This pot of funding allows us to address these undiscovered issues versus having to pause the project, go back out to bid, and search for additional funding," Nicole said.

The briefing was given as part of a public hearing required by the New York State Office of Community Renewal; the board called for public comment three times and received none, then declared the public hearing closed. Staff said they are available to provide additional project details to supervisors on request and described the planned 2025 CDBG submission as an application to continue the same housing-rehabilitation work countywide.

The board did not take a formal vote on the 2025 application during the June 20 meeting; the presenters described the intent to seek a larger award and explained past results, funding sources used to leverage projects, and program priorities going forward.