Bend advisory committee forms scoring subgroup, hears nonprofit reports and approves CAPER and revised action-plan recommendation

The City of Bend Affordable Housing Advisory Committee on its August meeting agreed to form a small working subgroup to revise application questions and scoring criteria for affordable-housing funding, received progress reports from a dozen local housing and service providers on Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), commercial and industrial construction tax (CICT) and ARPA-funded projects, and unanimously approved the 2024 Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report (CAPER) and a recommended amendment to the 2024 CDBG annual action plan for City Council consideration.

The committee decided that a subgroup of three to four AHEC members will meet outside regular meetings to take a “deeper dive” into application wording and scoring, then return recommendations to the full committee for adoption. "For the subgroup to be efficient and successful, we'd like to see 3 to 4 AHEC members volunteer," said Melissa Kamana, the city’s affordable housing coordinator, who proposed the group and described it as three or four meetings that would craft suggested changes to application questions and scoring criteria.

Why it matters: committee members said detailed, practical changes to application forms and scoring would reduce repetitive discussion at full AHEC meetings and make future funding rounds faster. Members also flagged that available city funding streams are constrained right now and that staff expect most near-term funding activity to focus on CDBG and a planned fall recruitment of new committee members.

Nonprofit and developer updates

Multiple recipients of city housing and shelter funding gave status updates. Highlights included: - Bethlehem Inn: John Baker, development director, said CDBG-funded case management positions are associated with measurable self-sufficiency gains among participants; 59% of clients reported an increase on a self-sufficiency measure, and most clients who improved were those enrolled…