Times Chronicle & Public Spirit
County housing plan approved
$11M allocated to projects
An update is now on the books to Montgomery County’s Housing Action Plan, meant to steer the development of affordable housing across the county.
“All in all, this totals over $11 million in assistance to our community, funds that specifically benefit persons of very low, low, and moderate income in our county,” said Kayleigh Silver, the county’s Interim Administrator of Housing and Community Development.
Each year, per federal regulations, her office develops an annual plan for housing and community development that is required for certain aid from the federal department of Housing and Urban Development, including Community Development Block Grants, the Home Investments Partnership Program, and the Emergency Solutions Grant program, plus funding through the county’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund, Housing Reinvestment Partnerships, and reallocated dollars from CBDG funding allocated for pandemic funding relief, Silver told the county commissioners on July 21.
For 2022, the county received a total of $3.3 million in new CBDG funding, plus roughly $438,000 in allocations from prior years; roughly $1.5 million in new HOME funding plus just over $1.8 million in prior year revenues and income, and roughly $285,000 for the ESG grants, plus just under $1.7 million in CBDG-CV funds, she said. The 2022 plan describes how the county plans to use the
funding, and a public comment period was open from June 6 to July 6 for online, mailed, and in-person public comments.
“All comments were received and reviewed, no comments were advocating for any change in the plan or funding decisions, and were supportive in nature,” she said.
The plan’s goals is to establish “reasonable basis for housing and community development assistance,” Silver told the commissioners, before detailing a list of projects the plan proposes to fund, as follows.
Allocations of the CBDG funding for 2022 include $200,000 each for Bridgeport Borough for boroughwide street improvements; East Greenville Borough for Blaker Drive street improvements; Jenkintown Borough for sidewalk and curb ramp improvements; and Pottstown Borough for storm sewer improvements. Additional allocations include just $185,000 to West Conshohocken Borough for sidewalks and curb ramps; just under $79,000 to Springfield Township for 1200 E. Willow Grove Ave. blight removal; and just over $64,000 to Royersford Borough for Church Street improvements.
Allocations outside of boroughs include $200,000 to West Pottsgrove Township for Anthony Wayne Drive sanitary sewer improvements; two allocations of $158,000 and $134,000 to Salvation Army chapters in Pottstown and Norristown respectively, $40,000 for Family Promise Montco for an emergency homeless shelters; $37,500 to nonprofit Laurel House for emergency shelter operations; and $30,000 to the Interfaith Hospitality Network of the Main Line. Additional allocations to support public services include $866,000 to repay a Section 108 loan; $550,000 for CBDG administration; allocations of $200,000 to the Montgomery County Housing Authority and Genesis Housing Corp.; and $60,000 to the Indian Creek Foundation; a full list of the plan allocations is available on the department’s website.
“These CBDG funds will fund housing rehab, public facilities and infrastructure, public services, and homeless emergency housing projects,” she said.
The list of HOME projects slated for county funding also includes over $3 million for projects across the county, Silver told the board, including allocations of $1.3 million to Habitat for Humanity of Montgomery and Delaware Counties for construction of eight new houses on Cowpath Road in Hatfield; $925,000 to Walters Group for a project listed on the plan as ‘Cornerstone at Pennbrook Station’ in Upper Gwynedd; $500,000 to the Upper Merion Area Housing Association for a “Towne Center” conversion projects; plus several smaller allocations.
“This includes the construction of new affordable rental housing, and homeownership, as well as tenant-based rental assistance for people with disabilities and people living with HIV and AIDS,” Silver said.
Another $1.25 million is allocated in the plan under the HRP or Housing Reinvestment Partnerships funds, which Silver told the board also supports the construction of new affordable rental housing for people with disabilities, and those allocations include an additional $375,000 to Walters Group for the Upper Gwynedd Pennbrook project; the same amount for Elon/Alliance LLC for the Laudenslager School on Cowpath Road; and $500,000 for Church Housing and their Cypress Place project. The just over $285,000 in ESG funding goes largely to the county’s Your Way Home program for homeless street outreach and rapid rehousing, while $700,000 is allocated from the county Affordable Housing Trust Fund, including $100,000 for the Hatfield Habitat project; $200,000 for Your Way Home; and $100,000 for the county’s First-Time Homebuyers Program, among other allocations.
Of the just under $1.7 million in CBDG-CV funding, roughly $1.2 million is allocated to support short-term housing relocations, with another $150,000 going to Your Way Home, a $100,000 allocation to Legal Aid of Southeastern PA; and $75,000 to Mitzvah Circle Foundation for a diaper bank program, according to Silver.
“Your resolution today just finalizes that public comment period, and these funding decisions,” Silver said.
Commissioners chairwoman Val Arkoosh then made a motion to approve the 2022 annual action plan, and amendments to the 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019 plans, subject to approval from the county’s solicitor, and to distribute the plan to the participating municipalities, nonprofits, and to the federal department of Housing and Urban Development “for their review and acceptance.” The board then unanimously approved it, with no further comments.
The Montgomery County commissioners next meet at 10 a.m. on Aug. 18 at the commissioners’ boardroom, 425 Swede St. in Norristown. For more information visit www. Montcopa.org.