Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 11/7/2022
WESTHAMPTON – As much as $700,000 in grant money may come to the town, in the next 18 months or so, now that Westhampton will be included in the next application for a Community Development Block Grant.
“We can’t take too many chances or we might lose the whole region,” said Dave Christopolis, Executive Director of the Hilltown Community Development Corporation [Hilltown CDC], which will submit the grant application. “The reason we didn’t use Westhampton, a couple years in a row, was because it was too risky. It would put risk to all those [other] towns. But this year … we felt like it’s worth [it].”
Block grants are funded by the federal government. Larger municipalities apply directly to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which administers the program. Smaller towns join together as a “mini-entitlement” and apply to the commonwealth. Each town is scored with a points system, based on need, with the points of all member towns combined.
Christopolis told the Select Board the top 20 applications in recent years varied by a couple of system points. A single point may make a big difference. The quality of the grant application also figures in funding decisions. Christopolis told the board the Hilltown CDC is strong in the writing department and the effort required from the town is minimal.
“We know how to compete, so it comes down to the towns that we choose within that one point spread” in combined scores, Christopolis said. “But we would like to include Westhampton this year [and] there’s no administrative role for the town to play accept to say, ‘Yes, we’d like to be part of the grant.’”
Municipalities use the money for a variety of projects. Christopolis said his organization helped Plainfield build its new public safety complex. Block grant money paid for architects to custom design a new senior center for Worthington, specifically for town-owned land. Smaller cities use block grant funds to redo streetscapes, lighting and sidewalks, or build out a commercial street. The money can be used for sewer improvements too.
“You can’t get anything you want, infrastructure-wise,” Christopolis said. “But we have done some of the other things they allow you to do with it.”
Up to 20 percent of the total award to a mini-entitlement can be used for social services. Block grants through the Hilltown CDC have funded the Hilltown elder network. The program finds a caregiver in town to do light chores, run seniors to appointments and grocery stores, and even to stack wood. Depending on the funds available, the program may aid in snow removal.
“We would offer that to seniors in town, through the COA [Council on Aging],” Christopolis said. “That’s the program we fund the most out of this grant for social services; and then there’s three other projects we fund, which aren’t ours.”
Previous block grants through the Hilltown CDC have subsidized the Help Center, which has a visiting nurse. Funds also went to support a local chapter of the senior village movement, It Takes a Village.
Seniors may also be eligible for home rehab assistance. The processing of tax returns and related information makes the benefit more time consuming and somewhat more costly. The good news is that the block grant program has more money this year, $35 million to $40 million, because of the COVID-19 “surplus funding,” Christopolis said. The maximum award increased from $1.3 million to $1.7 million.
“We’re going to try to get as much of that as we can,” Christopolis said. “The formula, we have to take that into account, what we’re anticipating, and then we start figuring out, okay, how many housing rehab units can we do in the timeframe?”
Philip Dowling, chair of the Select Board, asked an important question, “How much is the amount of the grant that you’ve received, just a rough number?”
According to Christopolis, last year the Hilltown CDC received a block grant of $1.3 million. A grant usually spans 18 months. Block grants are one of the biggest grants available to small towns, and the Hilltown CDC applies every year for that reason. When Dowling asked what percentage Westhampton can anticipate from a $1.3 million block grant, Christopolis was optimistic.
“A pretty large percentage” would go to Westhampton, Christopolis said. “It’ll probably be $700,000 or so.”
Seniors with an income of 80 percent of the median, or less, may participate in the program. That application for a block grant will be submitted, Christopolis said, early next year.