Housing rehab program alive for one more year

LIMERICK » Despite rising administrative costs, the Limerick Supervisors have decided to keep alive for at least one more year a federally funded housing rehabilitation program that has helped township residents for more than 20 years.

The official votes was accept $200,000 in community Development Block Grant funding for that purpose.

The program is a hold over from many years ago and had the supervisors declined to take the money, it would have effectively ended the program, said Township Manager Dan Kerr.

Escalating administrative costs are causing the township to spend its own money to meet the demands of the red tape, he told the supervisors last month.

There are many rules — prevailing wage, ensuring women- and minority-owned businesses are among the bidders, requirements that contractors hire low-income workers for the project — Kerr explained.

These rules, however well-intentioned, increase the cost of a project.

He said in 2016, the township received $198,000 in CDBG block grant money, but had to spend $24,000 on administration, auditing the contractors, filling out reports and the like.

The rules can be quite restrictive and also require any dwelling on which repairs are conducted, be fully brought up to code.

“So if someone applies to the program for us to repair their roof, once we go in we have to bring the whole house up to code,” Kerr said at the June 5 meeting. “That costs more money.”

He offered up the following example: “We had a job at a mobile home, I won’t say where, where we could have purchased a whole new mobile home for $15,000; just towed away the old one and plopped down a brand new one, for $15,000.”

However, Kerr said, the program’s rules don’t allow that, “so instead we had to spend $40,000 to bring that mobile home up to code.”

Kerr told the supervisors that it was staff’s recommendation to withdraw from the program and township residents could participate in a similar program operated by Montgomery County.

“Let’s give it another year and take a look at it again,” said Supervisor Ken Sperring Jr., which became a motion that was unanimously approved by the supervisors. With State Rep. Tom Quigley, R-6th Dist., in the audience, Supervisors’ Chairwoman Elaine DeWan took the opportunity to put him on the spot and outline the ways the red tape is killing a program that has benefited many Limerick residents over the years — things like requiring prevailing wage for small projects and rules which require an entire home be brought up to code rather than just fix the problem.

Quigley promised to look into it.