Comments on: Ann Arbor Housing Commission to Expand? http://annarborchronicle.com/2012/01/06/ann-arbor-housing-commission-to-expand/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ann-arbor-housing-commission-to-expand it's like being there Tue, 16 Sep 2014 04:56:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.2 By: Vivienne Armentrout http://annarborchronicle.com/2012/01/06/ann-arbor-housing-commission-to-expand/comment-page-1/#comment-86023 Vivienne Armentrout Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:35:33 +0000 http://annarborchronicle.com/?p=78857#comment-86023 It appears that Jennifer Hall, whose history is with both the Ann Arbor Community Development department, and the Washtenaw County-Ann Arbor Community development department (now known as the Urban County), is attempting to recreate a Community Development department within the Housing Commission. The Housing Commission has always been the overseer for public housing under the old Federal program that was discontinued decades ago. This would be a major expansion of its role – becoming a developer of affordable housing, and not public housing but even housing to sell?

Isn’t this a duplication of the Urban County, without the access to the CDBG funds that have been used in the past to pay for affordable housing initiatives in the city? We have turned that access over to the Urban County. (I reviewed this recently, and mentioned the sustainable communities grant, in a blog post [link])

The sustainable communities grant referenced in the article was under a program that has been terminated (after this last round of awards). It was partly funded through transportation funding and was “zeroed out” by Congress in recently passed transportation legislation. Thus, it will not be available for future funding.

The grant was a tour de force for Hall in her previous county position, and she successfully solicited letters of cooperation from virtually every local agency and government. Many of these offered “leverage” matches, money already allocated to supportive projects. As nearly the only cash match to the grant proposal, the City of Ann Arbor has promised $550,000, part of which is from the Parks Acquisition (Greenbelt) millage and part from the Park Maintenance millage. Apparently those amounts are to be used in acquiring the property discussed in this article.

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