The Community Development Block Grant Advisory Board met 01/15/2024 and voted on preliminary allocations for non-public community partners.
City staff had initially recommended the following recommendations:
- Habitat for Humanity – $152,000
- Rebuilding Together – $67,000
- Pillars – $56,000
- Wisconsin Women’s Business Initiative Corporation (WWBIC) – $25,350
- Salvation Army – $0
The board decided to amend the recommendations to reduce the amounts awarded to Habitat for Humanity and WWBIC so that Salvation Army could be funded at the full $30,625 it had requested. The amended grant recommendations are as follows:
- Habitat for Humanity – $132,000 (a decrease of $20,000)
- Rebuilding Together – $67,000
- Pillars – $56,000
- Wisconsin Women’s Business Initiative Corporation (WWBIC) – $14,725 (a decrease of $10,625)
- Salvation Army – $30,625
These are only preliminary recommendations based on an estimate of how many Community Development Block Grant Dollars the city expects to receive from the federal government. The city will not know what the actual dollar amount will be until late February or early March at which point they will be able to finalize the amounts awarded to non-public community partners and allow them to get started right on April 1st when the 2024-2025 program year begins.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
Although WWBIC had the lowest aggregate score of all of the entities requesting grants, staff had initially recommended awarding them funds while not awarding Salvation Army anything, eventhough Salvation Army had a higher aggregate score.
WWBIC intended to use grant dollars to fund a program that provided business training and counseling to small businesses, as well as create 5 full time job and retain 5 full time jobs. They estimated they would assist 50 individuals.
The Salvation Army wanted to use the funds to repave an alley and two small parking lots for tenants and housing services staff. The building served by these consisted of 11 efficiency units for tenants and office space for staff. They estimated that the improvements would benefit the 11 on-site tenants as well as 36 off-site households.
The reasoning behind staff’s recommendation to fund WWBIC and not Salvation Army was that WWBIC’s program would serve a larger number of people whereas the Salvation Army wanted to use the funds for land improvements on a very specific parcel of land. They believed the Salvation Army’s project would have a more limited impact on the area that WWBIC’s project which served a larger number of people and business owners in Appleton. Additionally, all of the proposed projects were housing/rehabilitation projects except for WWBIC’s project which was an economic development project which added some diversity to the types of projects funded by the grant dollars.
Committee member Marissa Downs initially made a motion to take the full amount of funds recommended for WWBIC and move it to the Salvation Army, but nobody seconded that motion. Eventually, the committee ended up decreasing Habitat for Humanity’s award by $20,000 and WWBIC’s award by $10,625 and directing it toward the Salvation Army.
The reasoning behind this was that Habitat for Humanity had already received $200,000 in ARPA dollars. Terrance Smith, Appleton’s DEI Coordinator, also thought that WWBIC had received a large grant from the State of Wisconsin within the last year. Additionally, the Salvation Army proposed to utilize its grant dollars in a way that clearly benefited local people, whereas WWBIC provided service statewide.
Given the specifics of the project that the Salvation Army was proposing, the committee felt it was better to fund it fully instead of partially out of concern that only partially funding it would leave them unable to do the project at all.
The committee voted unanimously to approve the amended amounts, fully funding the Salvation Army’s grand request by reducing the amounts awarded to Habitat for Humanity and WWBIC.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1144063&GUID=7E71AF77-0109-479F-8C30-D805F399C460
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