Community Development Finance Authority asks Senate Finance for $280,000 state match to administer federal CDBG funds

Katie Easterly Marte, executive director of the Community Development Finance Authority (CDFA), asked the Senate Finance Committee to continue a $280,000 state match that allows the agency to administer Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) across New Hampshire.

Marte said that, with the state match, CDFA administers roughly $19 million per year in federal investment for local housing, public facilities, childcare, homelessness services and small business support in communities statewide. She presented project examples from Conway, Keene, Berlin and Plymouth and said the match funds enable technical assistance and compliance oversight so smaller municipalities can access federal CDBG resources.

Why it matters: The state match is a funding prerequisite for a federally supported program that distributes capital grants to municipalities statewide for community development and affordable housing projects.

Details

- Match request: The governor and House budgets include the $280,000 match the CDFA requested to continue administering CDBG resources.

- Program impact: CDFA said its administrative work enables investments in housing rehabilitation, shelters, school and childcare facility projects and small business support across New Hampshire communities that are not CDBG entitlement communities.

Quote from the record

- “The request of $280,000… allows for the administration of the community development block grants, which is approximately an investment of $19,000,000 a year,” Katie Easterly Marte said.

Next steps

CDFA asked the committee to retain the match in the final budget to continue statewide access to federal CDBG grants.