Allen’s Community Enhancement Department proposed two items at the July 27 City Council meeting. The first was a Substantial Amendment to its 2021-2024 Consolidated Plan and 2020-2021 Annual Action to redistribute Community Development Block Grant-COVID (CDBG-CV) funds between COVID relief programs. The second was the 2021-2022 Annual Action Plan, which is a yearly requirement of the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department (HUD). Both CDBG programs are exclusively funded by HUD. Funds are distributed to Allen each year based on population and demographic data and allocated through the Annual Action Plan. In addition, the City received one-time COVID relief funds in 2020 to address ongoing COVID relief efforts. Learn about the many programs and services these funds support.
Substantial Amendment
In 2020, the City received one-time COVID funds that were distributed between utility bill assistance, tutoring assistance, senior food assistance, a Small Business Grant Program, and administrative costs. Over the last seven months the City has administered these programs and tracked the demand for each. After an aggressive outreach campaign for the Utility Bill program only 12 Allen families applied and received assistance. The limited interest is attributed to the State and County offering similar programs that have more flexibility than the CDBG funds allow. At the same time, the Small Business Grant Program received 56 applications within a three-week period before the program was closed; the demand greatly exceeded the allocated funding. To that end, the substantial amendment approved by Council on July 27 moved the unused funds from the Utility Bill Program to the Small Business Program in order to assist additional businesses.
Annual Action Plan
The City is required by HUD to adopt an Action Plan every year that support the goals outlined in their Five-Year Consolidated Plan. The 2021-2022 Action Plan represents a .022% increase in funding from the 2020-2021 Plan Year, which will support projects from Oct. 1, 2021-Sept. 30, 2022. Projects are facilitated by the Community Enhancement Department and include home repair, public services and administrative functions. The department highlighted the following projects planned with the proposed $436,081 budget:
- Home repair ($370,669): Provides eight full home rehabs and 10 urgent repairs
- Public service ($65,412): Provides up to three months of rent and utility assistance
- Administrative funding (covered by prior year rollover funds): Supports facilitation of grant marketing and processing