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April 23, 2010 For more information, Local Senior Multi-Family Rental Housing Area nonprofit funded to continue home renovation efforts The Missouri Department of Economic Development (DED) announced earlier this month that several projects in the Meramec Region, which were in an area of the state affected by weather related disasters during 2008, have been approved for supplemental Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding. Approved for funding were:
In all, over $1.74 million of federal funds will be spent in the Meramec Region to improve existing housing stock occupied by elderly and low-income families. Osage County applied for funds for projects in Osage and Gasconade counties while Crawford County applied for funding for the Sullivan project. Pulaski County sponsored the request for MCEC to benefit the entire region. Meramec Regional Planning Commission prepared the applications for the funded requests, on behalf of MCEC, MRPC’s nonprofit organization, and actually developed the requests and asked the counties to sponsor them. “We were contacted by folks in Linn, Rich Fountain and Hermann about finding grants to renovate their senior citizen housing complexes, and we had just missed the deadline for the primary grant program for those type of projects,” explained Kelly Sink-Blair, a grant writer with MRPC. “Then DED announced this pot of money, and it was a good fit. So we asked the county commissions to sponsor the applications, based upon the requests we had received directly. We had already been working with Sullivan Homes and they had been turned down on another request, so we wanted to get their name in the hat as well.” Once the grant paperwork is finalized, the projects will be put out for competitive bid. “Not only will homes be renovated, local contractors will have an opportunity for some work as well,” Sink-Blair noted. The funding for these grants was approved by Congress with the passage of the Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act of 2009 (Public Law 110-329), which appropriated $6.5 billion in CDBG funds for expenses related to disaster relief, long-term recovery, and restoration of infrastructure, housing and economic revitalization in areas affected by hurricanes, flooding and other natural disasters that occurred during 2008 and for which a presidential disaster declaration was issued. Missouri was allocated $92,605,490 from this appropriation. A minimum of $10,372,631 of this appropriation must be used for affordable rental housing activities. All projects funded must meet one of the following CDBG national objectives: (1) Low-to-moderate income (LMI) benefit: at least 51 percent of the persons benefitting from the project must be of LMI status, which is defined as incomes at or below 80 percent of the county median household income. This may be met through area 51 percent benefit, housing, job creation/retention, or limited clientele, (2) Slum and blight removal , or (3) Urgent threat to health and safety Eligible applicants are units of local government (cities and counties) located in an area receiving a presidential disaster declaration in 2008. Contractors interested in learning more about bidding or homeowners wanting to be considered for renovation work may contact Patti Adams at MRPC at 573-265-2993 or by email padams@meramecregion.org. |