Covington residents can now tell the city how it should spend grants it received from the federal government.
Specifically, the city is seeking feedback on how to allocate money from two federal programs administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD: the Community Development Block Grant, or CDBG, program and the HOME program.
The first way to provide feedback on the programs is to speak at a public hearing scheduled for next week’s meeting of the Covington Board of Commissioners, which begins at 6 p.m. at Covington City Hall, located on Pike Street. If you can’t attend the hearing, you can still make suggestions by contacting Covington’s Federal Grants Manager Jeremy Wallace at jwallace@covingtonky.gov or at (859) 292-2147.
CDBG has the larger allocation of the two programs, $1,409,780, according to the city. It can be used to fund home repairs, street infrastructure, park improvements, literacy programs, economic development initiatives and other programs that benefit the city as a whole.
The second program, HOME, is more narrowly focused on housing. Most notably, the HOME dollars go towards an inter-city consortium that offers housing down payment assistance in the form of forgivable loans for residents in the following cities: Covington, Ludlow, Newport, Bellevue, Dayton, Erlanger, Florence and Independence. The federal government has allocated $672,734.30 for the HOME program.
Spending plans for the programs are updated annually and every five years. You can read a draft of the most recent annual plan below.