During Monday’s city council work session, the potential to lose funding from the HOME and CDBG grants due to federal cuts to the Housing and Urban Development Department was discussed. Screenshot courtesy of the city of Jamestown’s website

Councilman Bill Reynolds, R-Ward 5, is ready to join the city’s development director opposing possible cuts to federal CDBG and HOME funding by the federal government.

During Monday’s City Council work session, Reynolds, who chairs the council’s Housing Committee, said the cuts proposed in President Donald Trump’s budget were discussed with Crystal Surdyk, city development director, during Monday’s Housing Committee meeting.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York and Senate minority leader, said Thursday during a news conference that Trump’s budget cuts more than $4.2 billion previously budgeted for the CDBG and HOME programs by eliminating the programs altogether.

“Crystal brought up the changes that are going to be voted on next week for the HOME and CDBG funds, and that there’s a probability of us losing some of that money,” Reynolds said. “CDBG funds annually amount to $1.2, $1.3 million and HOME funds about $300,000 or $400,000 a year.”

The block grant program was created in 1974 under President Gerald Ford. CDBG projects are required to meet certain criteria — chief among them that they are targeted to lower-income areas. But local officials have flexibility about how and where to use the money.

Reynolds said this is also the money that most of the Department of Development relies on in multiple ways. He added that the department has been in touch with people in the Buffalo office.

“It’s certainly detrimental to the city and we’re hopeful that with legislation forthcoming that we might be able to convince our federal representatives to reintroduce that funding,” Reynolds said.

This isn’t the first time Trump has proposed ending the CDBG program. Back in 2017, Trump’s first budget proposal called for abolishing the four-decade-old program, saying it’s not well targeted to poor areas and hasn’t demonstrated results. Critics have long said the block grant program is fraught with wasteful spending and has strayed from its original purpose of providing housing assistance and economic development in poor communities. Audits conducted by HUD’s Office of Inspector General turned up problems in at least a dozen communities in 2016 that were awarded CDBG money. Among the concerns: millions of dollars not being used appropriately and weak accounting and procurement procedures. A number of Republican lawmakers opposed cutting the programs and they remained largely untouched until now.

At the moment, 84% of the nationwide workforce is being let go from HUD. Reynolds noted that in the local, upstate region there are about 200 people that work for HUD as a part of that region, and that has now been reduced to six employees. He added that as can be imagined, things will be delayed because of this for months if not years.

“Sometime before next week, or maybe sooner, the administration or Crystal’s office will provide some bullet point letters for individual council people or residents of the city who are aware of the loss of these funds having such a detriment to our housing here in the city,” Reynolds said.