Thursday, March 27, 2025
Long Beach officials presented a detailed plan for allocating and utilizing Community Development Block Grant funds in the upcoming program year at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.
A presentation on how the block grant program will continue to benefit Long Beach, by Tyler Huffman, the city’s director of community development, and Patricia Bourne, the director of economic development, coincided with the council’s approval of Long Beach’s application to Nassau County to continue its involvement this year. The federal program, created by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and now in its 51st year, is designed to support local projects that enhance community growth, infrastructure, and housing development, with funding distributed by states and counties.
“I just want to say thanks for talking with Dan and the council about it,” Council President Brendan Finn told Huffman and Bourne, referring to City Manager Dan Creighton. “I’ll speak for myself at this moment, but we’re really thrilled with what you guys, what you both have done. It’s been excellent, really, very thankful for it.”
In 2023, the city was awarded $300,000 in federal funding by Nassau County, and last year the total doubled to $600,000, as well as a separate grant of $160,000 to renovate Sherman Brown Park, on East Pine St. City officials are expecting at least another $600,000 this year.
The funds are divided into three categories: administration, public services, and public facilities and infrastructure. Administration funding, which covers a portion of the salaries of staff members responsible for managing the program, typically accounts for 15 to 20 percent of the total allocation. Public services funding, which is capped at 15 percent of the total, supports programming for seniors and youth. The largest portion of the funds, around 65 percent, is dedicated to public facilities and infrastructure improvements. Long Beach has previously used the money for projects including street upgrades, the installation of a pedestrian crosswalk, HVAC system replacements at community centers and playground renovations at several parks.
“There’s no way we could tell people today what the awards will be, because we don’t even know what funding we’re getting,” Creighton said. “This is to inform the application process.”
At least 50 percent of the participants in public service programs must be from low- to moderate-income households, and public facilities and infrastructure projects must be located in designated low to moderate-income neighborhoods or serve those populations.
The city has seen a decline in the number of eligible so-called “yellow zones” that designate the qualifying areas. This isn’t necessarily because those neighborhoods have improved, but rather the result of changes in the underlying data and criteria that HUD uses to define the zones.
As the city enters the 51st year of the block grant program, it plans to set aside a portion of the allocation for “subgrants,” ranging from $5,000 to $10,000, for local nonprofits.
“Unfortunately, we can’t award grants to everybody because the funding is limited, but at this point in time, we’re still reviewing those applications,” Huffman said. “We’re looking to finalize the winning applications that will make it to the next round in the next week or two.”
