Threat to cut federal grant may imperil future county projects

Public invited to hearings on proposals that draw funds from Block Grant Program

Santa Fe County is asking the public to weigh in on future development projects it hopes to fund in part through a decades-old federal program meant to help low-income communities address infrastructure needs, revitalize neighborhoods in decay and fight poverty.

Two public hearings on the project planning process — the first one scheduled Tuesday — come as the White House is proposing to eliminate the $3 billion Community Development Block Grant Program, saying in a budget plan that the program has spent some $150 billion since it was launched in the 1970s and “is not well-targeted to the poorest populations and has not demonstrated results.” The proposal has met widespread criticism.

Santa Fe County spokeswoman Kristine Mihelcic said the block grant meetings are held every year and weren’t scheduled in reaction to the Trump administration’s budget proposal.

She didn’t comment on the president’s plan to eliminate the federal grant program or say how much of an effect the move would have on the county, which each year applies for a share of New Mexico’s allotment. That amount was expected to be $9 million this year.

But Santa Fe Mayor Javier Gonzales on Saturday said a decision to end the

funding program is “clearly bad policy on the federal government’s part. It’s abandoning a really traditional role they’ve played ever since the New Deal.”

The elimination of such assistance programs would mean that state and local governments will have to face tough choices of whether to continuing funding those programs with local budgets that are already strained, Gonzales said.

Over the years, the city of Santa Fe has used Community Development Block Grant money, distributed through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, to provide assistance for low-income Santa Feans to become homeowners through organizations such as the Santa Fe Community Housing Trust. Trump’s effort to eliminate funding for such housing assistance programs is one reason why Gonzales will ask city councilors in the coming weeks to draft a plan to repurpose some city-owned properties, he said, leasing them out to raise revenue for homeownership assistance or converting them into affordable rental properties.

He first introduced the idea during his State of the City address last month.

The Housing and Urban Development Department began the federal Community Development Block Program in 1974. It offers funding to communities for services and capital projects that “benefit low-and-moderate income persons, prevention or elimination of slums or blight, or address community development needs having a particular urgency because existing conditions pose a serious and immediate threat to the health or welfare of the community,” the agency says on its website.

Local governments provide matching support for the grants.

President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the housing agency, former Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson, has been critical of the type of federal assistance the department offers.

The president proposes cutting the housing department’s budget by more than 13 percent, or $6 billion. Half of that savings would come from cutting the Community Development Block Grant Program altogether.

Santa Fe County’s first of two public hearings on the 2017 application cycle for the federal block grants will be at 2 p.m. Tuesday at the county administration building, 102 Grant Ave. County commissioners will review past projects funded through the program and consider proposals for a future project.

The second hearing on the issue will be at 2 p.m. April 11 at the county administration building.

But it’s unclear if Congress will fend off Trump’s effort to eliminate the program and preserve the funds needed to complete a project selected by county officials.

Gonzales said the White House proposal to cut the block grant program is a “recurring theme in the Trump administration where he is going to eliminate a program where people can improve their lives.”