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City staff outlines CDBG and HOME spending: homeowner rehab, demolition, street lighting and HOME construction set-aside
Summary
City staff summarized recent Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME program spending: homeowner rehabilitation projects, demolition, street lighting and streetscaping projects, HOME funding for Partnership Park rehab and CHDO set-aside, and COVID-related CDBG-CV and HOME-ARP investments in park projects and transitional housing.
Corey, a city staff member, summarized how Jackson spent federal HUD grants in the most recent cycle during a Sept. 16 public hearing on the city’s Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME program performance.
Corey told the council the CDBG program funded about a dozen homeowner rehabilitation projects — roof, furnace and plumbing replacements — and that the city budgets about $250,000 annually for that work. The city also budgets roughly $200,000 a year for demolitions of fire-damaged or blighted homes, and provides about $25,000 annually to the city attorney’s office to support administrative code-enforcement hearings, he said. "Those are kind of the bread and butter of our rehab program," Corey said.
Corey described two larger projects that had been delayed by required historic-preservation and environmental reviews: a bundled street-lighting project and streetscaping (sidewalk and driveway) work, which the city plans to combine across fiscal years and put to bid together, resulting in about $650,000 for street lighting and $300,000 for streetscaping when combined across years.
On HOME funds, Corey said the city allocates about $250,000 a year to Partnership Park rehabilitation subgrants (administered through a community action subgrantee) and a required 15% CHDO set-aside for eligible new-construction projects; the city has carried CHDO dollars because it has not yet identified a qualifying new-construction project. He also summarized CDBG-CV and HOME-ARP (COVID) projects, noting investment in the Loomis Park walking-trail and park improvements and that HOME-ARP funds will support transitional housing projects subgranted to local nonprofit partners with construction expected to start within six months pending environmental and historic reviews.
The council opened and closed the hearing; staff said the city has until HUD deadlines (varying by funding source) to obligate or spend many of the funds and will continue to bring project-level updates to council.
