On June 17, the Petersburg City Council voted to allocate $585,812 in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG ) funding to 12 recipients, giving more than double the CDBG advisory board’s original funding recommendation to the city’s recreation department and completely eliminating recommended funding for several nonprofits providing homelessness aid, urgent home repairs and more.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s CDBG program provides annual grants to states, counties, and cities — including Petersburg — to support infrastructure and community development projects. Petersburg’s CDBG Advisory Board reviews local applications, conducts public hearings, and recommends how funds should be distributed to City Council.
Over the years, CDBG funds have helped finance a wide range of local initiatives led by nonprofits and the city. The funds are intended to benefit low- and moderate-income residents and can support projects such as housing rehabilitation, economic development, and infrastructure improvements.
In June 2024, the CDBG board recommended 12 organizations — including several non-profits providing crucial public services to the community— receive a total of $581,842. However, City Council passed a motion to award the majority of the CDBG funds to the city’s recreation department, leaving no money for multiple nonprofits. This included organizations like Project: Homes, which provides low-income families and individuals with free critical home-safety repairs, accessibility modifications and energy conservation measures.
Board member asks Council not to ignore recommendations again
This year, before City Council voted, a CDBG advisory board member spoke up during the public comment period to ask Council not to do the same again.
“I’m speaking now because last year, our recommendations were ignored by the Council, who gave all our money to parks,” board member Leonard Curry said. “Our committee meets citizens all through the year and hears what the community needs.”
Curry added that CDBG funding is primarily meant to address housing needs within the city — including urgent home repairs for community members who may not be able to afford them — and asked that council not redirect money away from these critical home repairs services this year.
“We have 150 homes in this town belonging to primarily widows and widowers…they have rooms that leak. They have bad plumbing,” he said. “…Please don’t change this, let’s move ahead with critical home repair.”
Petersburg resident Barb Rudolph echoed Curry’s sentiments.
“Please accept the recommendations as provided to you by the CDBG advisory board, don’t modify them, don’t base it on any particular nonprofit group that anybody on council has issues with,” Rudolph told City Council. “This has been carefully vetted by the CDBG folks.”
“I usually attend at least one of their meetings every year to just to kind of see what’s going on, and I’m very impressed with how hard they work and how serious they are about this,” she added, “…I do think this is worthy of of your approval without any further modifications.”
Funding allocation snubs homeless aid, home repair nonprofits
However, after Rudolph finished speaking, Ward 5 council member Howard Myers made a motion to allocate the CDBG funding differently than was proposed by the board.
The reallocation completely eliminated the substantial funding that the board had recommended for two nonprofits that provide critical home repairs for community members in need, Tri-Cities Habitat for Humanity and Project: HOMES. It also eliminated the recommended funding for multiple non-profits providing aid to Petersburg’s unhoused community members, including CARES INC and Lending Helping Hands.
Additionally, the reallocation eliminated recommended funding for River Street Education — the nonprofit that runs the local farmer’s market, the market at the Petersburg Public Library and more — and The OCR Community Empowerment Group, a nonprofit dedicated to revitalizing Petersburg’s historically marginalized neighborhoods.
Myers’s motion passed with three votes in favor from Myers, Ward 4 council member Charles Cuthbert and Ward 1 council member Marlow Jones.
Ward 6 council members Annette Smith-Lee voted against the motion, and Mayor Samuel Parham abstained, adding that he did so because he accepted the CDBG recommendations fort eh board “as is.”
City Council’s CDBG funding allocation is as follows:
CDBG administration and operations: $116,000 (original board recommendation: $116,000)
Healthy Families (Hopewell/Petersburg Healthy Start Loving Steps) — $9,706 (original board recommendation: $9,706)
This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Council names CDBG awardees, gives most funding to recreation dept.