TO: Mayor and City Council
THROUGH: Krishna Namburi, City Manager
FROM: Kristin Retherford, Director Community Planning and Development
SUBJECT:
title
Status of Program Year 2025 HUD Community Development Block Grant and HOME Investment Partnership Grant
Ward(s): All Wards
Councilor(s): All Councilors
Neighborhood(s): All Neighborhoods
Result Area(s): Welcoming and Livable Community
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SUMMARY:
summary
After a long delay, the City has received its Program Year 2025 grant documents for the Community Development Block Grant and HOME Investment Partnership Grant from the HUD Portland Field Office. The documents have been signed and returned.
The next step is for HUD to open the City’s line of credit in the disbursement system, making the funds available. The CDBG grant is $1,469,200 and the HOME grant is $672,520.end
ISSUE:
Information only
RECOMMENDATION:dation
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FACTS AND FINDINGS:
HUD issued a blanket waiver on January 23, 2026, for all jurisdictions subject to a CDBG timeliness consultation. This both cleared the issuance of grant documents and relieved the City from a timeliness penalty.
BACKGROUND:
The timeliness test is performed annually on May 2nd, with the goal of spending down grant balances below 1.5 times the amount of the most recent grant. The City did not meet its timeliness goal in Program Years 2021-2024.
As expected, the grant documents came with some conditions in conflict with Oregon law; however, a federal district court enjoined enforcement of those conditions. HUD stated in the grant documents that it would not enforce those conditions unless and until they were reinstated by a court order.
The delay has caused challenges for community partners, primarily the three subrecipients who received public service allocations and the City’s Community Development Housing Organization (CDHO), DevNW. The delay also compounded the underlying timeliness issue. The next test will happen on May 2nd and in HUD’s last correspondence about the City’s consultation it stated HUD’s delays would not be considered a reason outside the City’s control.
Staff have a plan to meet the timeliness test with support from community partners. The City has to draw approximately $2,688,800 to meet the goal.
• Public services and WestCare multi-family rehab: Environmental reviews and subrecipient agreements in the amount of $434,100 are already in place for public services and WestCare’s multi-family rehab. Community partners have already done public service work and just need to invoice the City once the City’s line of credit is open. WestCare has already done two phases of its rehab and just needs to invoice the City for work completed.
• Administrative expense reimbursement: Approximately $224,000.
• Potential land acquisitions for future low/moderate-income housing: Anticipated $1,100,000.
• Marion Polk Foodshare (MPFS): When Council adopted the Consolidated Plan last July it allocated $600,000 to Marion Polk Foodshare for the purchase of a larger warehouse to meet the exponentially growing demand MPFS faces. MPFS has requested an additional $550,000 to cover gap funding, and staff will bring a substantial amendment to Council on March 9th to allocate an additional $516,500 for this purpose, for a total of $1,116,560. MPFS has a closing date prior to the timeliness test.
Altogether, approximately $2,874,660 is planned to be drawn before the timeliness test, which is expected to result in a score of 1.37.
As back up, the environmental review is done for Center for Hope Safety’s advocacy office rehabilitation which had $600,000 allocated last July and they may draw some portion prior to the test as well. They’ve accepted a bid for the work.
Michael Brown
Housing Production Programs and Incentives
Attachments:
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