Feds Continue Significant Cuts to Cdbg
Grant Assists Low and Moderate-Income Residents
The City will experience one of the deepest cuts since 2001 to the annual Community Development Block Grant, a vital Federal funding source that allows local municipalities to provide aid to low- and moderate-income residents.
In Arvada, CDBG funds are used primarily to fund housing rehabilitation for low-income Arvada homeowners through the Essential Home Repairs Program; that program will experience the brunt of the current round of cuts which amount to 5.75 percent. Arvada has also utilized CDBG funds to provide assistance to non-profit community-based groups such as Meals On Wheels, the Child Advocacy Center for sexually-abused children, and the Carin' Clinic which provides health care for low-income families.
The 5.75 percent cut in 2005 CDBG funds continues a decline in appropriations from the US Congress since 2001. These cuts come at a time when the needs of low-income families and households have increased. Further, other funding cuts and the impact of inflation have seriously impacted the City of Arvada's ability to address crucial community needs. Arvada's annual CDBG grant has plummeted from $704,000 in 2001 to an estimated $582,474 in 2005, amounting to a cut of about 17% in just five years. When adjusted for inflation, the value of the CDBG grant for meeting crucial City needs has declined even further.
Initial indications are that the White House is considering even deeper cuts to CDBG in 2006.
CDBG, which is celebrating its 30th birthday in 2005, is widely regarded as one of the most successful and best examples of a Federal urban assistance program that provides flexibility to local communities to address their housing and community development needs within broad Federal guidelines. In a letter to the Colorado Congressional delegation, Arvada Mayor Ken Fellman wrote: "Funding has been applied to a series of important projects and programs in the City... In 2003 alone, over 5,700 low and moderate-income persons or households received vital assistance in Arvada that was financially supported in some manner through CDBG... For too long community revitalization and housing has taken the brunt of funding cuts that are now seriously eroding our capacity to meet some of our most pressing needs regarding some of our residents who are most in need."
