Established as an Urban County Entitlement in 1988,
Spokane County receives approximately
$1.8 million in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and Home
Investment Partnerships ( HOME) entitlement grants annually
from the
US Department
of Housing and Urban Development. (HUD)
As
an entitlement grantee, Spokane County is solely responsible
for ensuring that activities funded with CDBG or HOME
funds are conducted in compliance with all applicable Federal, State and
local laws and regulations, and that the benefits of each activity and
the overall entitlement program are provided principally to low and
moderate-income persons or households within the County, exclusive of
the City of Spokane.
The Housing and Community Development Department
maintains this responsibility and oversees the integrity of the County's
CDBG and HOME entitlement from beginning to end. The Department
provides all administrative, planning, compliance, monitoring, training
and reporting functions necessary to meet the requirements of these two
programs.
The Department conducts a
Request
For Proposal (RFP) process each year and allocates these
federal funds to
eligible
applicants to conduct activities that address
high
priority needs in the community and meet the test of benefit
to low income persons. Activities come in many forms and range
from providing emergency medical assistance to upgrading wastewater
treatment facilities, to job creation.
The Housing and Community Development
staff provide technical assistance to organizations conducting CDBG and
HOME activities, administer individual projects to ensure compliance
with federal, state, and local laws and regulations, implement planning
policies to guide the allocation of funds, provide professional review
and analysis of all applications for funding, and work closely with the
Housing
and Community Development Advisory Committee and
Board
of County Commissioners to ensure funding is provided to
activities that effectively address the many high-priority needs of
Spokane County residents.
Department Documents
Each year, the department is responsible
for the completion and submission of key
documents
and reports to HUD for the purposes of planning, verifying
compliance with federal requirements, and reporting on activities
conducted throughout the program year. These documents include a
5 year
Consolidated Plan to guide the allocation of funding,
Annual
Action Plans to outline how CDBG and HOME funds will be used in a given
year to address the needs and goals stated in the Consolidated Plan, and
the
Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation
Report (CAPER) to demonstrate the degree to which these goals
were accomplished.
WASHINGTON
