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Bush targets development grants for budget cuts again
By ALAN J. ORTBALS

   Local community development agencies will be hit hard again if the Bush Administration budget passes as proposed. The budget, recently delivered to Congress, contains a 33 percent cut in community development block grant funding for the upcoming fiscal year.

   This is the latest in a steady decline of funding beginning in 2001.

   CDBG funds, under the federal umbrella of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, are primarily used for public facilities like street work, sidewalks, water lines and sewer lines in eligible neighborhoods. Eligibility is determined by income levels. Another major focus of CDGB funds is to assist the poor and elderly with housing rehabilitation.

   Cheryl Jouett, director of Community Development for Madison County, has seen her funding drop by about 25 percent since 2002.

   "We used to get over $4 million," Jouett said. "In the past five or six years, we've lost $1 million in that program."

   Under the president's proposed budget, Madison County's allocation would drop another million dollars to around $2.1 million for 2007. Added to the declining amounts of the previous four years, that would deal a body blow to the program, says Jouett.

   "We haven't had a funding level that low since 1976," she said. "As you well know, $2 million went a lot further in 1976 than it does today, which means we're going to have to sit down and rethink how this program operates and what we can really do with it. It would be devastating."

   Ken Hise, the manager of the Community Development Division of St. Clair County's Intergovernmental Grants Department, has experienced similar cuts in program funding, dropping from $3.1 million in 2001 to $2.4 million today. The proposed 33 percent budget cut could potentially take up to $800,000 out of his budget.

   "It impacts us directly in that we have fewer administration dollars and fewer program dollars to deliver to the communities in terms of public facility grants, to our communities for eligible neighborhoods, for street work, sidewalks, water lines, sewer lines, that sort of thing," Hise said. "And, we'll have fewer dollars to spend on housing rehabilitation grants for homeowners who need help maintaining their homes, especially the elderly. We get a lot of elderly applicants in that program because they've been in there a number of years and their income may have dropped off, they may have lost a spouse and they're not able to maintain their home like it should be. So it's going to have a direct impact on all of those programs, as well as others."

   The CDBG program, according to Hise, is integral to many other programs. For example, St. Clair County provides help to disabled people through accessibility grants.

   The county makes emergency repair grants to help people who may not be able to qualify for a full housing rehab but may need a roof, wiring or plumbing or other repairs that pose a health and safety-related issue. St. Clair County also has a Home Investment Partnership Grant program to provide homebuyers' assistance, down payment and closing cost help, subsidies for new construction of single family homes in targeted neighborhoods and housing rehab.

   "CDBG is sort of like the glue that holds it all together," Hise said.

   Although both Madison and St. Clair counties have lost nearly 25 percent of their CDBG funding over the past five years, it could have been much worse, according to Jouett. Last year, Jouett said, President Bush proposed a 100 percent cut; but by the time the budget passed through Congress, CDBG only lost 11 percent. Jouett attributes the turn-around to the popularity of the program at the local level.

   "There were a lot of Republicans who strongly support this program, or it would not be at the level it is," Jouett said.

   Hise is hoping something similar happens this year.

   "All we can do is make our local officials aware of what is going on and ask for their support with our congressman and senators," he said. "I think our two U.S. senators and congressman are fully in support of these programs. This will, I think, help keep them aware of the feelings of the local officials. The decision will be made by the entire Congress and the representatives and senators from other states are going to make a big difference, too. I can only hope the programs continue receiving the support level that they have."

   Several White House news releases dated from early February onward cite the Bush Administration's reason for shrinking the Department of Housing and Urban Development's $8 billion community branch as in line with the president's promises "to eliminate or consolidate what we see as duplicative or ineffective programs." White House officials attest that economic development programs are "scattered too widely in the government and have proved particularly ineffectual at HUD."

   Included in the administration's overall strategy is the elimination of dozens of economic development projects, disbanding a rural housing program and folding high-profile, anti-poverty efforts into the U.S. Labor and Commerce departments.