Cleveland City Council passed a plan Monday night to spend nearly $28 million in federal dollars on repairing homes, reducing homelessness and other neighborhood projects.
This comes after months of uncertainty about the future of federal funding for neighborhoods from the Community Development Block Grant program and related housing initiatives under President Donald Trump. While awaiting word about the CDBG funding this spring, Mayor Justin Bibb warned nonprofits that rely on the money to dial back their spending.
Cleveland officials learned in May that the city would receive about $27.9 million, a 1.5% decline from last year. The city is receiving $19.5 million in CDBG funding. Another $8.4 million comes from other federal programs focused on housing, homelessness and AIDS services.
“Over the past year, we faced prolonged federal uncertainty, shutdown threats, an actual shutdown, continuing resolutions and potential cuts that directly affect our operations and more importantly the residents that we serve,” Community Development Director Alyssa Hernandez told council members at a Monday committee hearing.
Here are some of the ways the city plans to spend its CDBG money. Numbers have been rounded.
- $7.4 million in neighborhood development activities grants. These are grants that City Council members give out for such work as home repairs and business assistance. Often that money goes to neighborhood nonprofits called Community Development Corporations. This year’s amount comes out to almost $494,000 per ward on council’s new 15-ward map.
- $1.7 million for home repairs
- $1.4 million in grants addressing an array of issues, including systemic poverty, youth violence and poverty among the elderly
- $930,000 to clean and cut grass on vacant lots
- $117,000 for community gardens
Read the full list here, and see additional information about the programs here.
These months of uncertainty have taken a toll on morale in her department, Hernandez said. She said she also implemented a hiring freeze for “a good bit of the year.” With 78 full-time employees, the department is below its full employment figure of 111.
Council Member Kevin Conwell raised a common complaint about the city’s grant spending, that it takes too long for City Hall to reimburse community development corporations for their work.
“That pulls money from them, and then they have to say no to the community,” he said at Monday’s committee meeting.
Then the community blames council members for the delay, he added.
Hernandez said that while there can be “snags” with complicated payment issues, the city is getting money out the door more smoothly than it did when she started the job in 2022.
“We are in a much better place with processing than we have been in a generation,” she said.
