Marin County expects to receive $ 5.3 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2021-22 to help finance housing and services for low-income households, especially non-whites .
That is roughly twice as much as the county received last year. The county had expected to receive close to $ 2.4 million.
The HUD money is provided through the Community Development Block Grant Program (CDBG) and the HOME Investment Partnerships program. This month regulators approved spending of $ 2.1 million to support 25 local CDBG projects and $ 981,109 for two HOME projects.
The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, signed by President Biden on March 11, provided for $ 1.9 trillion in additional pandemic-related relief. Marin County’s planner Molly Kron said the county will make new applications before asking regulators to allocate the additional funds to the American bailout.
Leelee Thomas, a county planning manager, said the HUD programs provide services and housing for low-income households, with an emphasis on “sheltered classes” under fair housing laws.
“Ensuring access for people of color, people with disabilities and families with children is an important part of this program,” said Thomas.
A protected class is a group of people who qualify for specific special protection based on a law or directive. Federally protected classes include race, color, national origin, religion, gender, gender, disability, and people over the age of 40.
Kron said the HOME program is designed to increase the amount of affordable housing for low and very low income households, while the CDBG program funds services for low and middle income people as well as affordable housing.
The two largest allocations of HUD funds went to ambitious residential projects in San Rafael and Novato.
Homeward Bound of Marin, a nonprofit that operates all of Marin’s homeless shelters, is receiving more than $ 526,000 for a project to build 50 homes for extremely low and very low income renters off the New Beginnings site in Novato.
24 of the apartments are to be reserved for veterans and 26 formerly homeless entering the labor market. The project also includes a commercial kitchen where tenants receive vocational training and which is rented for events.
The first phase of the project, the Veteran’s Housing, is valued at $ 10 million. The price for the entire project is $ 25.4 million. To date, Homeward Bound has raised approximately $ 8.5 million, so an additional $ 1.5 million will be needed to begin the first phase.
Mary Kay Sweeney, executive director of Homeward Bound, said that “finding all sources of funding is a multi-year endeavor”. She said the end of next year will be the earliest time construction can begin.
Regulators also provided Eden Housing with $ 500,000 in HUD funding to create 67 homes for seniors in a new building in San Rafael. Vivalon, formerly known as Whistlestop, a not-for-profit organization for older adults, selected Eden Housing from Hayward as a complement to the project, which will also include an integrated health center in the building.
The overall project is valued at $ 51 million, but the residential portion that the HUD money will fund will be $ 44.7 million.
Daniela Ogden, a spokeswoman for Eden Housing, said that with the HUD assignment, all funding for the nonprofit has now been completed.
“That was the last bit,” said Ogden. Construction is expected to start next spring.
Other sizeable allocations included $ 231,000 to the Marin Housing Authority to fund a residential redevelopment program. more than $ 148,000 to the Redwoods Senior Housing Complex in Mill Valley for the revitalization of low-income units; and $ 125,000 to Marin City Community Services District for a master plan for a Manzanita Center.
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