A change in the way the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) calculates a timeliness ratio (what it means to use grant money in a timely manner) last year, required the City’s Planning and Development Department to reallocate a portion of the HUD funds the City uses to run a commercial loan program.
The loan program was started with HUD Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) funds and has made more than 230 small-business and facade-improvement loans over the years.
The result has been a flurry of projects, benefitting Springfield’s neighborhoods, including parks, sidewalk and infrastructure improvements. The City’s Planning Department and HUD provided the funds to key projects including: more than $1 million in playground and trail improvements, a $300,000 loan to Eden Village (tiny homes for the homeless), and a $1 million loan to Community Partnership of the Ozarks for the acquisition and rehabilitation of the former Pepperdine Elementary School to house the Springfield Affordable Housing Center and One Door (one-stop shop for services for the homeless).
On June 12, 2017, City Council approved a plan which outlined the list of "shovel-ready" priority projects. The projects were selected using HUD’s strict criteria that includes meeting national objectives for the program, including benefiting low-to-moderate income people and eliminating slum and blight. Funding went to high-impact and/or transformational projects that geographically dispersed.
Project Breakdown:
Public Infrastructure $2.4 million
Public Infrastructure $2.4 million
Commercial Loans $1.4 million
Affordable Housing Loans $1.9 million
Total $5.7 million
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