Toledo lists development grant recommendations
4/1/2005The Toledo mayor's office yesterday released its recommendations for the distribution of federal Community Development Block Grant funds.
This year, almost all the community development corporations will receive the same amount of money they received last year, said Tom Kroma, the city's deputy director of economic and community development.
The community development corporations, this year's allocations, and last year's awards, in parentheses, are:
●River East, $217, 843 ($229,308).
●Lagrange Development Corp., $189, 050 ($189,050).
●Neighborhoods In Partnership $167, 483 ($172,663).
●Organized Neighbors Yielding eXellence, $121,824 ($121,824).
●NorthRiver Development Corp., $110,485 ($110,485).
●Neighborhood Housing Services, $86,565 ($86,565).
●Toledo Central City Neighborhoods, $82,484 ($82,484).
●Ottawa Community Development Corp., $65,000 ($75,666).
The money comes from the city's annual Community Development Block Grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The city's total grant this year will be $8,941,501, down from $9.46 million last year.
That's because there was a 5 percent reduction in HUD funding for cities across the country, Mr. Kroma explained.
He said the city had to use its own carry-over funds from last year in order to award the local development corporations their same allocations.
"Every city that receives this funding saw a cut," he said. "Our share of that amounted to about $500,000."
For the community development corporations, the money is typically used to pay for salaries, such as the director and other staff, and to allow the groups to do housing and business development in economically stressed areas.
Now that the mayor's office has made its recommendations, they will be made official once they are approved by the Toledo City Council. Two public hearings will be held Monday in the council chambers to officially announce the funding recommendations.
Council's first reading of the ordinance will be April 19.