The City Council is planning to vote at the end of the month on a resolution that would provide an additional $500,000 for the Senior Citizen Home Improvement program. If passed, the resolution would bring the total for the program to $1.5 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds. Pictured, from left, are Councilwoman Kim Ecklund, R-At Large, Councilman Randy Daversa, R-At Large, Councilman Jeff Russell, R-At Large and Councilman Andrew Faulkner, R-Ward VI.
P-J photo by Timothy Frudd
The Senior Citizen Home Improvement program will likely receive more funding by the end of the month as City Council members plan on voting to approve more American Rescue Plan Act funding for the community.
While the city’s remaining ARPA funding has rapidly decreased in recent months, City Council members have repeatedly discussed the need to increase funding for the popular Senior Citizen Home Improvement program. During Monday’s work session, City Council President Anthony Dolce, R-Ward II, asked the council to consider a proposal to allocate an additional $500,000 to the program due to the multitude of requests council members have received from people in the community.
“I’m sure we’ve all had a number of emails or calls about the program,” he said. “To date, we have allocated $1 million.”
Dolce explained that the City Council could choose from a couple different options to allocate the additional ARPA funding for the program. He suggested the City Council could either allocate an additional $500,000 from the remaining ARPA funding in order to bring the program to a total of $1.5 million or the council could reallocate funding from another community home improvement program that has not yet come “off the ground.”
Regardless of how the funding could be allocated, Dolce stressed the importance of providing the additional funding for the Senior Citizen Home Improvement program so that all eligible applicants could be awarded funds.
During Monday’s work session, the Finance Committee also asked the full council how it should proceed with the city administration’s proposal for the 19A Home Ownership program. While City Council members discussed concerns with the city entering the real estate business, the majority of the council agreed that the program could benefit the community by providing an alternative to demolition for properties that could be improved with an initial investment by the city and sold to new homeowners at a reasonable price and for a possible profit.
Nevertheless, with dwindling ARPA funds, City Council members agreed that the proposal to fund the program should be reduced from the requested $750,000 to $500,000. Despite the reduction in the 19A Home Ownership program’s funding, the city administration indicated that the program would still be able to move forward successfully.
With $250,000 less expected to be allocated to the 19A Home Ownership program, Dolce urged the council to use the funding to help fund the remaining $500,000 for the Senior Citizen Home Improvement Program.
“My suggestion tonight is that if we’re taking the $250,000 from the 19A program, that cuts that in half and then you allocate another $250,000 from ARPA to bring the senior housing program up to $1.5 million, and then you still have the other $500,000 for the other program,” he said.
At the suggestion of Dolce, the other City Council members agreed that the best way to allocate funding for the Senior Citizen Home Improvement program would be to use the $250,000 from the 19A Home Ownership program in conjunction with an additional $250,000 from the unallocated ARPA funding.
Mayor Eddie Sundquist said the city administration will adjust the proposals to reflect the City Council’s guidance regarding the reallocation of the remaining ARPA funding prior to November’s upcoming voting session.
Dolce said the increased funding for the Senior Citizen Home Improvement program will help the City Council move one step closer to meeting the needs of the community that were discussed before any of the ARPA funding was allocated.
“That was one of the key components that we heard last summer during the four meetings that we had, getting the money in the hands of the residents and neighborhoods as much as we could,” Dolce said. “We’ve tried to move this stuff around. We’ve hit every single thing. We’ve hit public safety, we’ve housing, development, just about every corner of the different categories.”
City Councilman Jeff Russell, R-At Large, said both the city administration and the council have done “a fairly good job distributing ARPA money in an equitable manner to a variety of departments and programs.
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