City Hall issued the following press release yesterday.
The City of Hudson has been awarded two housing rehabilitation grants from New York State’s Office of Homes and Community Renewal. Hudson received a $520,000 HOME grant to fund critical health and safety repairs for single-family owner-occupied housing and a $120,000 Access to Home Grant to make residential units accessible for low- and moderate-income persons with disabilities. . . .
The HOME grant will fund critical repairs of owner-occupied single-family houses in the City of Hudson for households at or under 80% of the Area Median Income (approximately $57,800 for a household of one and $66,000 for a household of two). Examples of eligible repairs include, but are not limited to: roof repairs, structural repairs, plumbing, or electrical repairs. The main goal of the program is to help keep housing safe and healthy for homeowners and to prevent displacement due to prohibitive costs of repairs.
The second grant, ACCESS TO HOME, provides funding to make residential units accessible for low- and moderate- income persons with disabilities. Both tenants and homeowners in the City of Hudson are eligible for this funding if they have a documented disability and meet the income eligibility guidelines. Examples of modification may include wheelchair ramps and lifts, handrails, doorway widening, and roll-in showers.
Local organizations such as the Independent Living Center of the Hudson Valley, the Columbia County Office for the Aging, and the Columbia County Veterans Service Agency helped support the grant application for the Access to Home grants, and the City will continue working with these groups to identify and support program applicants.
The City is currently accepting pre-applications from interested households. Residents of Hudson interested in either grant can read more on the City’s website. Interested households can submit a pre-application here or by calling 518-828-7217 no later than February 10, 2025. Pre-applications will be screened for eligibility. Funding is limited and projects will be selected based off household eligibility, severity of need, and project feasibility.
Inquiries related to either grant may be directed to Housing Justice Director Michelle Tullo at housing@cityofhudson.org.
This seems unnecessarily murky and convoluted to me:
ReplyDeleteSo you have to pre-apply for it, only to be then potentially given the approval to file the actual application. Where does that second, real application go to? To the city or to some state agency in Albany?
Who amongst the city employees or officials screens the pre-application? Is it Michelle Tullo herself? For questions, they direct folks to the email of Tullo but the phone number of mayoral aide Justin Weaver.
And finally, the pre-application is to be submitted via airtable, a third-party provider of customizable business apps. Can the applications still be FOIL'ed for auditing purposes given that this is a private service?
Could this be made a little more transparent, please?
I think the real question one could ask is the ultimate destination of the money. For these grants and the rehab ones that came before that have been fully utilized. Who is getting the contracts for the work? What is the bidding process?
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