Students Pushing for Legislative Action to Stop Hunger and Homelessness (SPLASH)

IMPROVE THE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT

Here is a simple action that students can take to make a difference nationally in different communities. Simply print out the petition, put it at your registration table, and send it to your Representative. Go to www.congress.org to find out who your Rep is in the House.

Representative Connie Meek of Miami has introduced a bill to the House of Representatives that stands to improve the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) by focusing more of the money for low income people, and by increasing the opportunity for nonprofits to foster public participation. CDBG is a federal program that has worked to allocate federal resources to localities throughout the nation to fight community poverty. In short, CDBG is a pot of federal money that has been around since 1975. It is administered by HUD (US Department of Housing and Urban Development). Each year, every city of over 50,000 in population automatically gets CDBG money, and so does every county with a population of at least 200,000. In addition, each state gets money to distribute to its small towns and rural counties. Since 1975, about $82 billion has been allocated. For the last several years, about $4.2 billion has been available annually.

The bill has three goals:

• establishing minimum standard that 80% of all CDBG income be directed to help low-income families
• to prevent "area benefit tests" which use CDBG money for business development instead of direct aid such as housing programs
• to eliminate barriers that keep non-profit organizations from using CDBG dollars for their projects.

Use the following sample petition to tell your Representative to support the CDBG Renewal Grant of 2001!!!

For more information visit www.communitychange.org or contact:
Ed Gramlich
Center for Community Change
1000 Wisconsin Ave
Washington DC 20007
202.342.0567
fax 202.342.1132
gramliche@communitychange.org

SAMPLE PETITION

Given the increasingly severe shortage of affordable housing, the growing loss of public housing units, and the changes in welfare law, pressures on low income people are more acute than ever. Yet Community Development Block Grants, a key resource for helping to address the affordable housing and other needs of low and moderate income people, is too often used in ways that do not meet their needs. To address this problem, we, the undersigned, urge your support for The CDBG Renewal Act of 2001.

Past Actions