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WARREN -- City council adopted an ordinance Wednesday authorizing the administration to file applications for a 2024 Community Development Block Grant and HOME program grant.
According to the legislation, the Community Development Citizens' Committee, which was appointed by the city, determined a list of fundable projects based on the needs of the community, number of citizens served and availability of potential matching funds.
"Part of the city projects always include infrastructure projects, like roads and sidewalks, some sewer work," Mayor Doug Franklin said.
"We also have some economic development services such as Warren Redevelopment and Planning, BRITE (Energy Innovators)."
On the 2024 plan, the city's Community Development Department will be submitting to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, $250,000 of the requested $1.1 million in funds for proposed street and sidewalk repairs in CDBG target areas.
Another $220,000 would be allocated for administrative costs for the Community Development Department.
Franklin said in preparing the action plan, the proposed allocations of CDBG for nonprofit organizations were the most difficult to determine.
"The one that gets the most time from the committee is the nonprofits," he said.
"That is a smaller amount of money, but it is extremely competitive. We award a wide variety, seven or eight projects annually. Generally, they're very competitive because its always twice as many applicants as organizations that we are able to fund. That is where most of the debate comes in."
Some of the nonprofit organizations slotted for CDBG allocations in 2024 include Trumbull Mobile Meals, which has a planned allocation of $15,000; Someplace Safe with a planned allocation of $10,000; and Inspiring Minds with a planned allocation of $28,625.
Franklin said one criteria used to select organizations to receive allocations is how those groups might improve the success rate of the application.
"Generally, they're judged upon their success rate and the amount of people that they serve, usually that's the criteria that we required for them to be funded," he said.
Council also approved an application for $700,000 through HOME Grant allocations. Those funds would go toward administrative costs, homebuyer assistance and housing rehabilitation.
"We have to submit it back to HUD, but generally, it's always approved, this is just part of the process," Franklin said. "HUD will give us the money after we submit our application projects. It can't go back to HUD without council approval.
"We'll start seeing that money probably next year. This is just part of the formal process, but it can be spent in 2024," he said.