Apr 8, 2017 8 min read

Mention the federal Community Development Block Grant program to the average person on the street, and he or she will probably give you a blank stare. But that man-on-the-street interview – conducted literally on the street or, more likely, on a sidewalk – might be taking place there because CDBG money played a role in either constructing or fixing it.

Street and sidewalk repairs, demolition, park improvements and even a new fire truck, are the meat and potatoes of the Community Development Block Grant program, which has been zeroed out in the White House proposed budget for 2017-18. Or, if you’re a Washington resident whose house catches fire, your local first responders may be fighting it with new equipment, all courtesy of, so far, federal taxpayers.

Washington County received $3,612,599 in 2016 for federally eligible community development projects. Washington County communities that receive money every year include California, Canonsburg, Donora, Monongahela and Washington. The other 60 municipalities receive an allocation of about $50,000 every four years.

The Community Development Block Grant program also encourages home ownership for those with low incomes, offering home-buyer assistance, and home rehabilitation, allowing people to age in place rather than resorting to assisted living or a nursing home, which is much more expensive.

What might be in store for those who benefit from the program is unknown, even to the executive director of the Washington County Redevelopment Authority, which administers the CDBG program in Washington County.

“All we’ve seen is what’s in the paper,” said William McGowen. “We’re estimating the same amount for 2017 that we got for ’16, but we don’t know that. It does things that are good, like working on blight and working on demolition.

“The ’18 budget is what the president has put forth, and the CDBG program and the HOME investment partnership program have been zeroed. This is the budget process, which has to go through both sides of Congress. It’s complicated, the funding, how it goes.”

The money comes to Washington County through the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Rob Phillips, redevelopment authority assistant community development director, said CDBG funds have been declining since before the turn of the century. At the height of funding, Washington County received about $7 million. In 2002, the county got $5.6 million.

“We’ve dealt with the potential threat (of significant cuts,)” Phillips said. “Any cut is going to impact the county, and we pass that off to all the municipalities that are funded. The level of funding will obviously be reduced based on what the reduction is.”

Phillips said the county has a plan in place based on the amount given in 2016. If funding is reduced, there is a contingency plan that allows the department to use $50,000 from an unprogrammed account. If the cut is more than $50,000, reductions would be made on a percentage basis across the municipalities.

A letter to legislators is being prepared by the authority that highlights community improvements made through CDBG funding from 2010 to 2015, including the demolition of 119 blighted structures, 15 fire station or equipment enhancements and infrastructure improvements to 42 streets, 17 water or sewer lines and nine sidewalks.

“You’re going to see lots of lobbying and groups out there to keep these funds at the levels they have been,” Phillips said.

One unusual line item that appears on the CDBG 2016 spreadsheet is the refinancing of 84 Lumber’s loan repayment that refinanced debt in 2010 that company officials considered burdensome.

The country’s largest privately held supplier of building materials obtained a $45 million, 17-year HUD loan in the midst of the Great Recession that began in 2008. Instead of paying 18 percent interest to Cereberus Capital Management, from which 84 Lumber originally borrowed $195 million in 2008 to keep the company afloat, 84 Lumber obtained a much lower interest rate through HUD and retained local jobs.

Greene County officials also are preparing for a reduction.

Greene County CDBG coordinator Crystal Simmons returned Tuesday from an annual conference of administrators where the proposed cuts were “one of the big topics.”

“This has not been the first time this has been proposed,” she said.

Several years ago, the program also faced uncertainty in funding.

“And the outcry was deafening,” said Simmons.

Since 2009, the county has received about $4 million in funding from the program that has been used primarily to fund sewer and water line projects.

“It’s one of the few water and sewer funding sources that we have that is a pure grant,” she said.

Like Phillips, Simmons said CDBG administrators across the state plan to more publicly discuss what CDBG money does for their communities to gain support for the program.

“I think the state and representatives of the counties and municipalities around the state are going to be working together, using more than just graphs and data, to show how (eliminating the program) will affect people in their communities,” she said.

The county is planning to hold a hearing in May on the use of the 2017 CDBG program. Simmons said the amounts that will be distributed through the program for the current year have not yet been announced, but the county is expecting about the same amount as last year.

The level of funding for the program has been relatively stable the last few years, though it had been declining earlier.

In 2010, for instance, the county CDBG grant alone had been about $218,000; last year it was $178,000, Simmons said.

Greene County and the three municipalities eligible for individual CDBG grants, Waynesburg Borough and Franklin and Cumberland townships, last year received a total of $510,969 in CDBG money.

Waynesburg received $69,171 to plan and develop a sewer system rehabilitation project; Franklin Township received $90,111 for a multiyear water line extension project along Orndoff Road.

Cumberland Township’s allotment of $85,679 will be used for its residential housing rehabilitation program.

The county’s CDBG allocation, $178,190, which is used in non-entitled communities, will be used for a sewer line replacement project along Oak Forest Road in Wayne Township.

Money Waynesburg Borough is receiving from the program is being used to develop a sewer project mandated by the state Department of Environmental Protection to reduce sewage overflows at its treatment plant

“The money is very important,” borough manager Mike Simms said. “If we didn’t get this money, we’d have to draw down money from the general fund to pay those costs.”

Zeroing out meals-on-wheels programs funded by Community Development Block Grants in the proposed federal budget has garnered a lot of publicity.

Leslie Grenfell, executive director of the Charleroi-based Southwestern Pennsylvania Area Agency on Aging, said of the 2,100 home-delivered meals her organization provides on business days in Washington, Greene and Fayette counties, “It’s not just a feel-good program.”

About 400 volunteers in the tri-county area deliver the meals prepared in 16 production sites that are managed by seven nutrition subcontractors under the auspices of the federal Older Americans Act. The program also receives Pennsylvania Lottery funds.

” The details on the meal programs under the Older Americans Act has not been provided,” Grenfell said. “There is a stated 17.9 (percent) cut to the Department of Health and Human Services, which, if implemented, would likely have a negative impact on senior nutrition programs.

“Some of these programs are safety-net prograns and life-sustaining programs that allow people to stay in the community,” Grenfell continued, noting the meals keep the health of recipients from deteriorating by preventing malnutrition and warding off disease in what she called “our greatest generation.”

“It provides an opportunity for people to see what we refer to as a warm meal from a friendly hand. They’re checking on people as they deliver the meal as well,” Grenfell said.

The average cost to prepare and deliver a meal is $5.96. Recipients are asked to donate whatever they feel they can afford.

Grenfell’s program is separate from a Meals-on-Wheels program based in Peters Township, which, according to Susan Hanawalt, executive director, is an independent provider of five-day-a-week meals for seniors that relies on the help of about 250 volunteers. Just last week, the volunteers rescued consumers who had fallen.

“We receive no federal, state or local government funding,” Hanawalt wrote in an email. “We are currently serving about 180 meals a day. Our service area has expanded to take in all the communities around our McMurray kitchen, including Peters, Canonsburg, Houston, Muse, Finleyville, parts of Eighty Four, parts of Bethel Park and Upper St. Clair, and Bridgeville-South Fayette. Clients are asked for a contribution of $25 a week. … We rely on the community’s generous donors to meet the rest of our needs.”