City makes plan for use of low-income federal grant funds
Jul. 23—Decatur plans to focus on rehabbing homes, providing mortgage assistance and supporting public services like those that help the homeless, youth, those in need of wheelchair ramps and those needing heat relief with its federal funding devoted to low-income areas in 2024-25.
However, the city isn't planning any new playgrounds, community centers or major capital projects with federal Community Development Block Grant funding as it has in the past, Community Development Manager Allen Stover said.
The City Council recently approved an action plan for $452,615 that the city expects to receive in the coming year from the CDBG program. This is an annual federal fund designed to improve low-income neighborhoods.
The city must create a five-year consolidated plan to show how it plans to spend the money.
Stover said the city is getting just over $10,000 more in CDBG funds than it got this year when it built four parks and contributed money toward a planned special needs park.
Councilman Billy Jackson's District 1 has benefited the most in the city over the years from CDBG funding. The money paid for major projects like the Turner-Surles Community Resource Center and Butch Matthews Field.
Jackson said the city used to get double the amount it's getting now so it was able to do more projects.
He said they also used to let the money build up so they could afford to do a big project. For example, he said they saved $2 million in grants to fund Turner-Surles.
"There's always something we could do differently, but I think (Stover) has done a good job of managing the money," Jackson said.
But Stover said HUD rules no longer allow the city to save the grant money for years at a time. This makes it more difficult to use the funds for large projects. — Down-payment help
The city once again will use a portion of the money, $175,000, for its successful Decatur H.O.M.E. (Home Ownership Made Easy) program for down-payment assistance.
Stover said this program has been very successful in the past 17 years, allocating $1.36 million and helping more than 400 families purchase a home in Decatur.
He said he expects this will help up to seven low- to moderate-income families with down payments on purchasing a home.
However, Stover admitted they're "having some issues" with this program because of the lack of housing stock and the housing prices. The Valley Multiple Listing Service shows only 17 homes listed under $200,000 available for sale in Decatur.
"There's just not that many houses available now under $200,000," Stover said.
The MLS shows Decatur's median sales price for a single-family home in 2015 was $125,000. Prices then rose continually in the last nine years, with the median sales price reaching $279,718 in June.
Home inventory did improve in June, rising 68.9% to 201 available homes in Decatur. Homes tend to stay on the market an average of 3.9 months. Last year, the average stay on the market was 2.2 months.
Stover said the $4,500 the program pays toward closing costs doesn't cover all that's needed now.
"Like everything else, closing costs went up," Stover said.
Stover said he is working with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development field office "to figure out what we can to do to give first-time homebuyers incentives to buy by offsetting the cost to make affordable housing available."
Stover said they're looking at possibly doing some kind of mortgage assistance in addition to down-payment assistance.
The plan says it will give priority to Northwest Decatur and the Goodyear/Grant Street areas because that's where "the majority of our code enforcement complaints come from."
These target areas also have the lowest number of owner-occupied housing in the city, the plan says.
"Our strategy for addressing the goal of increasing homeownership in these areas will hopefully decrease the amount of code enforcement violations in the Target Area and increase the potential for residential investments in these neighborhoods," Stover wrote in the plan.
—
Home rehab
A major part of the plan is the city will give $119,200 to the Community Action Partnership of North Alabama for rehabbing single-family homes.
"The rehab we're doing of homes is something positive," Jackson said. "It really helps our community."
Jackson said the CAPNA rehab is a good alternative to the down-payment program because it avoids problems with home shortages and housing prices.
—
Public services
The plan calls for the city to devote $60,892, or 15% of the funds, to public services. The plan divides the money among these nonprofits:
—Parents and Children Together (PACT), $2,000 — Transportation assistance for families enrolled in the Welfare-to-Work Program. This program will assist in repairing 10 donated cars.
—Decatur Youth Services, $36,392 — Provides youth with safe after-school and summer enrichment activities, educational enrichment programs and summer jobs.
—Decatur Youth Enrichment, $1,800 — Provides educational, cultural and psychological enrichment for the city's youth and senior citizens.
—Mental Health Association of Morgan County, $4,500 — Program for Alzheimer's disease patients and Family Project Care. This program will provide incontinence products, nutritional supplements and respite care to 15 low-income families caring for Alzheimer's patients.
—Volunteer Center of Morgan County, $5,000 — Construction of wheelchair ramps and purchase of air-conditioning window units for the Disabled Senior Citizen Emergency Relief Program.
—Decatur Police Department A.C.E.S. Program, $3,000 — Provides 350 at-risk youth with summer activities over a five-week period.
—Morgan County Commission on the Aging, $15,000 — Operation and maintenance of Turner-Surles Community Resource Center.
The plan includes a grant match of $32,994 from the city's general fund. This money will pay a code enforcement officer for the targeted areas.
Finally, federal rules allow the city to keep 20%, or $90,923, for grant administration and to allocate 10% for nonprofits.
— bayne.hughes@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2432
