JAMESTOWN – The Jamestown City Council Monday night did approve a resolution to finalize it’s allocation plan for funding from the federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and Home Program.
City Development Director Vince DeJoy says an estimated $2 million will be sent to the city from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to be used for projects ranging from housing rehab and demolition to façade improvements along main corridors of the city.
“It’s going to focus heavily on rehab projects – both owner occupied and rental and performing some infrastructure improvements to some targeted areas,” DeJoy said. “We’re also going to be investing heavily again in demolition. We backed off on that a little bit the past couple of years, but we’re finding that we’re coming up short because we have so many demolishing waiting in the queue.”
While the $2 million has been committed to the city for this year, the future fate of the programs is unknown but DeJoy said so far, it appears it will remain, although funding will likely be reduced.
“It’s looking like there will be a cut in future budgets. I think congress sees this as a very popular program for municipalities. One that works. One that provides a lot of private investment that follows the public investment, but what I understand is that there still could be a $200 million cut to a $4 Billion program.”
The CDBG and Home Programs have been threatened to be eliminated by the Trump administration, but members of Congress, including Tom Reed, have said they want to see the programs remain in place.
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