The Community Development Committee met 07/09/2025. One of the items they took up was a request to allow the Appleton Housing Authority to take $37,000 in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) dollars remaining from 2021 and direct it away from homeownership assistance and rehabilitation and focus it instead of rental rehabilitation.
The committee voted 3-0 to recommend the change be approved.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
Community Development Specialist Olivia Galyon told the committee that in 2021 the Appleton Housing Authority was awarded $37,000 in CDBG dollars to support their homebuyer assistance and homeowner rehabilitation programs. Since that time, they have not been able to use the money for that purpose for a couple of different reasons.
Firstly, the homebuyer assistance and homeowner rehabilitation programs offer 0% interest loans that must be repaid when the houses are sold. Because of low interest rates in 2020 and 2021, a lot of program participants sold their houses so that they could move to different place, and the Appleton Housing Authority received an influx of loan repayment dollars which in turn resulted in them having a higher level of program income than they expected or had had in previous years.
Secondly, a requirement was in place that program income needed to be spent down prior to CDBG being spent. Because of the higher than expected program income resulting from the loan repayments, the Appleton Housing Authority was not able to reach a point where program income was spent down allowing them to start using the CDBG dollars.
CDBG funds are required to be spent within 7 years of being awarded. Since these dollars were received in 2021, they need to be spent by the end of 2028. The loans the housing authority provides for the rehabilitation and homebuyer programs are only around $5,000 per person. Additionally, it had become difficult for clients to find houses in Appleton that they wanted to buy and that also met the purchase eligibility requirements for the program. Given those issues, it could well be a couple years before they found enough people who qualified for the $37,000.
As a result, instead of continuing trying to use the money for homebuyer assistance and homeowner rehabilitation, the Appleton Housing Authority would like to redirect the funds to use them to rehabilitate a rental unit that they own and rent to low- and moderate-income residents at an affordable rental rate.
Ms. Galyon noted that rental rehabilitation had been an allowable use of CDBG funds during the time the 2021 grant was awarded, so it was legal and above-board to redirect the funds in that way. If approved by the committee and Common Council, the change would be submitted to the Department of Housing and Urban Development for final approval. The city had held a 30-day public comment period for this proposed change and received no comments. They also held a public hearing on the change during the Community Development Committee meeting and received no feedback.
Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) thought that this was a good opportunity to fill a gap in rental rehabilitation and wondered if the Appleton Housing Authority was interested in pursuing similar projects in the future.
Ms. Galyon said that the public was more aware of the housing authority’s homeowner rehabilitation loan program and not so much about their rental program. Rental rehabilitation would continue to be an eligible activity under the 2025-2029 CDBG Consolidated Plan. “So just because we don’t have necessarily interest right now, that doesn’t mean that in the future, Appleton Housing Authority, or another nonprofit organization […] could [not] also apply for that in the future.”
The committee voted 3-0 to recommend the requested change be approved.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1309282&GUID=E0C01B1C-686C-41B5-B623-F88BEF4BDBF5
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