Zak Stone Photo
Liz Smith (on left) and Leslie Sprague Clerkin (on right)
New Haven actually has more federal money than last year to hand out to not-for-profit community groups. But it’s cracking down on who gets it.
That was the message delivered at a City Hall hearing Wednesday night.
It concerned federal U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) “block grants” — a pot of money sent to the city to divide up each year to help not-for-profits feed people, build homes, tutor adults in reading.
New Haven will receive a 10 percent increase in the community development money. But several organizations, like the Grand Avenue Village Association and Life Haven, have already been disqualified from winning federal funds after filing incomplete applications.
Elizabeth Smith, project coordinator of the Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), announced the loosened budget and the tightened regulations at a joint meeting of the Board of Aldermen’s Community Development and Human Services Committees. Ten aldermen gathered in City Hall to familiarize themselves with the complicated annual review process, which will take place this spring.
This past year HUD awarded New Haven over $6 million, when counting the supplementary funds from the economic stimulus package. Click here and here for back stories about the application process.
This year New Haven could win 10 percent more, Smith said. But the city will have to hold its breath and wait until the fickle HUD confirms the figures for its final allocation this spring.
While CDBG is the most general award, New Haven organizations also applied for money from Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS, Emergency Shelter grants, and the HOME Investments Partnership Program, all of which target housing inadequacies.
According to Smith, this year’s review process will proceed more strictly than ever. The city imposed new regulations on applicants, like mandatory attendance at an ethics workshop. If a group did not show up to the ethics meeting, then its representatives already received rejection letters, which Smith presented to the committee.
Unlike in past years when the city would allow community groups a second chance to fix incomplete applications, such requests will be met with a resounding “no” this year, said Smith. Applications were time-stamped upon receipt. “So there’s no way [for an applicant] to say ‘Oh, I dropped it off’” on time when it was actually late, she said.
“Sometimes people will say that ‘Liz Smith is a pain in the butt,’” commented Leslie Sprague Clerkin, a consultant who helps Smith with the review process. But it’s HUD itself that sets such strict requirements. Failure to comply could result in delayed funding, said Smith.
Smith explained that she worked hard to make the process requirements and deadlines as transparent as possible, by advertising with local media and by publicizing the grants at neighborhood meetings.
Board of Aldermen President Carl Goldfield called more stringent deadlines a good idea. He said that he remembers hearing about controversy in the past when certain groups that had not turned in forms on time were allowed to proceed. “If you’re not strict about everyone being completed, [the committee] starts to become a judge,” he said.
Liz
Keep up the good work!