By Krystal Smalley
ksmalley@wbcowqel.com
In a world of smaller budgets and fewer grants, local government entities took the initiative to work together to receive grant funding.
The Crawford County commissioners and the Bucyrus and Galion mayors met with Barbara Richards, the Housing Grants Director for the Ohio Regional Development Corp, Tuesday morning to discuss the partnership the three entities are forming to receive Community Housing Impact and Preservation (CHIP) grants. CHIP grants assist communities in preserving and improving affordable housing for low- and moderate- income Ohioans.
A few years ago, when Crestline was still a city, the area received nearly $2 million in CHIP grants. Since then, Crestline has become a village and budgets across the state have been slashed and grants reduced. According to Richards, the Fiscal Year 2014 CHIP grant for the entire county could be nearly half of what it was a few years ago, coming in at over $900,000.
“It is a major cut to the small city,” Richards said. “You already felt the cut in the last go round,” Richards stated.
“Since they’re partnering, each city will get $350,000 and the county will get half of the county amount,” Richards explained.
“Everybody coming together is just a way of kind of streamlining the process,” said Richards. “All the grant is going to be right here in one spot. So they can come to one spot and apply no matter where they live.”
Richards said they won’t be funneling the grant money in different ways by taking this approach.
“In the end, like they said, if there’s funds left over, they’re not going to be penalized for sending them back to the state because they don’t like to give money back,” Richards said. “So we can kind of divvy them up between the jurisdictions then.”
The county will have to designate how the funds will be awarded among each jurisdiction before submitting the application. Eligible project categories include rehabilitation assistance, repair assistance, homeownership assistance, and tenant-based rental assistance.
The application is competitive and based on various criteria but Richards noted that rural communities, which were more distressed, saw more funding during the last go round. Richards said the program does award points for collaboration among the jurisdictions and with other programs within the county.
No matter how many points the partnership receives, however, it is still capped at a certain amount.
Galion Mayor Tom O’Leary found issue with the reduced number of categories for which they could use the funds, most notably with the absence of the emergency monthly housing assistance.
“I really have a lot of issues with this decision,” O’Leary said. “It’s very problematic in the small communities. The number of families who are doubled up or tripled up or bundled up, that don’t have the resources of their own rental.”
Even with the changes and reductions, Bucyrus Mayor Roger Moore said it has been beneficial to those who have taken advantage of the CHIP program.
“I think what you find is, it takes—for lack of a better word—your low- to medium- income people that really struggle, they want to be a homeowner, they’ve worked all their life to be a homeowner, they just need that extra boost,” said Moore, who has a history in real estate. “This allows them that extra boost to get in that home. And what you’re going to find is they’re likely to be the ones that stay there the whole 30 years the mortgage on is.”
The CHIP program allows those individuals to get out of apartment living or out of living with their parents, Moore explained.
“It’s a win-win for us,” Moore said. “I just don’t support the assistance on the rental and there’s various reasons.”
Moore and O’Leary both cited concerns over slumlords during the meeting but Moore conceded that there were also decent landlords in the area, too.
The county, as the grantee, will have the ability to have an extra $225,000, which is a portion of the next round. Crawford County had already been funded $400,000 for FY 2013 but, because the county is needed in the partnership, the program will be granting the extra funds to the county for taking on the responsibility.
The commissioners saw the concerns of receiving extra funds when they already have trouble allotting the funds within the county. It was noted that the majority of the applicants are from the cities within Crawford County, though “it is like pulling teeth” to pass the funds out within the county.
“Our needs in the county are not as great as what they are (in the city),” said Commissioner Jenny Vermillion.
“If the need is within the cities and not so much within the county spectrum, what’s the possibility of tapping that county money for the city?” Moore asked Richards.
She said she will find out more on whether the additional $225,000 could be used within the city.
The CHIP application must be submitted by June 6. The funds will have to be spent over two years.