The block grants can be used to help fund anti-poverty agencies, rehabilitate or build new affordable housing and improve roads, parks and sidewalks in low-income neighborhoods.
Mayor Domenic J. Sarno was recognized at the South End Community Center by Square One and students for his efforts in combating childhood obesity. The program was funded in 2010 with federal Community Development Block Grant money.A release of entitlement grants from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development is being greeted with disappointment by city leaders who are seeing a 16 percent cut in funding this year.
Six Massachusetts federal legislators announced the release of a variety of funds that are designed to help the poor in mostly urban areas.
The announcement is for Community Development Block Grants, that help fund anti-poverty services and make improvements in low-income neighborhoods.
Other grants released are from the federal HOME and the Mortgage Modification and Mortgage Scam Assistance program that help provide affordable housing.
Chicopee, Holyoke, Northampton, Westfield and Springfield are receiving block grants that range from $404,399 in Westfield to $3.71 million in Springfield.
In Springfield, the block grant funds this fiscal year were cut by $723,109.
“Any decrease hurts, but we are being asked to do more with less,” Mayor Domenic J. Sarno said. “We will try to use the funds as efficiently and effectively and as compassionately as we can.”
The funds are “a lifeline” for urban mayors, Sarno said. The money is used for youth development, housing and rehabilitating derelict housing, increasing home ownership, economic development, business development and park improvements.
In Holyoke, the $1.2 million in block grants this year is down 16 percent. In 2010 the city received about $1.4 million, said Linda B. McQuade, director of the city Office of Community Development.
“(The block grants) did get cut in the federal budget debate,” McQuade said.
The distribution includes $250,000 to the Department of Public Works to fix or replace sidewalks, $200,000 to Olde Holyoke Development Corp. for new and rehabilitated housing, $200,000 toward the renovation of the Holyoke Public Library, $200,000 to demolish blighted and otherwise abandoned buildings and $60,000 to the Parks and Recreation Department for the Pulaski Park basketball court, the Roberts Field retaining wall and Veterans Park lighting, according to the office’s website.
Organizations such as the Boys & Girls Club, Girls Inc., Greater Holyoke YMCA, Nueva Esperanza and Salvation Army also will get some funding, McQuade said.
Chicopee has also seen a similar decline in grants. This year it received. $1.16 million and the previous year it received $1.4 million.
“It is lower than last year,” Chicopee Community Development Director Carl F. Dietz said. “It means we will provide less services and do fewer projects.”
One of the concerns is the grants will continue to decline at a time when the city is banking on using some of the money to assist in building a new senior center. Under the plan approved by the mayor and City Council, the city is planning to borrow $5 million from the federal grant program and pay it back using about $450,000 in grant allotments every year, he said.
Northampton is seeing a 16 percent as well. This year’s allotment is $686,263.
The amount is nearly identical to the that city projected it would receive last spring. In fact, the City Council has already signed off on Mayor Mary Clare Higgins’ plan to use the money.
The biggest beneficiary is Senior Center, which accounts for $328,101 of the block grant money. Another $137,252 has been earmarked for supplementing salaries in the city’s Community and Economic Development Office. Northampton will distribute most of the remaining money among human service agencies and organizations dedicated to addressing the housing needs of low-income people.
Also, Holyoke will get $580,000 of the $854,000 from HOME funds, which can be used only for housing. Holyoke’s share will help in funding developer Denis Walsh’s $16 million plan to revamp the former Holyoke Catholic High School complex on Chestnut Street into 52 apartments, some of which will be for low-income people, McQuade said.
The rest of the HOME funds to go Chicopee, she said.
Springfield Neighborhood Housing Services is also receive about $17.4 million in Mortgage Modification and Mortgage Scam Assistance, which is designed to provide counseling to homeowners and to prevent foreclosures.
Staff writers Peter Goonan, Fred Contrada and Michael Plaisance contributed to this report.