The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) allocates Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding to the State of Michigan, through the Michigan Strategic Fund (MSF) with assistance from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), for further distribution to eligible Units of General Local Government (UGLGs) to carry out MSF-approved activities.
CDBG program funds are used to provide grants and loans to UGLGs, usually with populations under 50,000, in support of economic or community development projects. Project proposals are considered and evaluated continuously based upon the MSF's approved CDBG Funding Guide.
CDBG Funding is categorized by the following Program Initiatives:
- Building Rehabilitation - Projects to eliminate conditions of blight that are detrimental to public health and safety or necessary for historic preservation through rehabilitations of individual buildings.
- CDBG Loan Program - Loans to eligible small businesses to meet a National Objective.
- Direct Assistance to Business - Direct Assistance to Business is designed to provide grant funding for proposed projects that will result in job creation.
- Façade Improvements - The Façade Improvement funding is for improvements to multiple facades for businesses along a local commercial district that serves an LMI community or that are in a community designated blighted area.
- Public Facilities - Acquisition or rehabilitation of public facilities, including neighborhood facilities that provide social services such as libraries and community centers and parks and other public recreational facilities, or limited clientele facilities such as senior centers, facilities for persons with disabilities, youth centers, childcare centers, and facilities for abused or neglected children.
- Rental Rehabilitation - Reactivation of residential space in mixed-used buildings to encourage density in downtowns.
- Public Improvements (Public Infrastructure) - infrastructure elements located at street level or below grade (horizontal construction), which benefit the residents of a defined service area.
- Unique/Innovative - Funding requests may be considered by the MEDC, based on special and/or unique needs, or situations requiring innovative program approaches not specifically provided for in identified funding initiatives.
- CARES COVID-19 Response Public Services - Funding for services, that are necessary to respond, mitigate, or prevent COVID-19.
Under the CDBG program, all projects must meet one of the following national objectives and the statutorily mandated requirements to be considered for funding:
- Benefit persons of low and moderate income
- Prevention or elimination of slums or blight
- Urgent need: These activities are designed to meet other community development needs having a particular urgency because existing conditions pose a serious and immediate threat to the health or welfare of the community which are of recent origin or which recently became urgent.