Community Development Block Grants

Posted on March 4, 2011 by townsend

• Block grants could face major cuts as federal funds to fight poverty tighten, By Henri E. Cauvin, March 3, 2011, Washington Post: “Community development block grants have been a vital source of federal anti-poverty money for decades, supporting affordable housing, job training and an array of other programs serving low-income communities. When President Obama, in his 2012 budget, proposed cutting funding for CDBGs, as they are known, by about $300 million, local officials across the country worried about their already-battered finances. Then House Republicans offered their take on the nearly $4 billion grant program. Not only did they urge cutting the program by more than half, to $1.5 billion, they also endorsed making the cuts in the middle of the current fiscal year, part of the $61 billion in proposed cuts that have helped set up the budget battle. Even with Congress having voted this week on smaller cuts to keep the government funded through March 18, the far bigger trims proposed by the Republicans are still on the table. Cuts might not be finalized, but their seeming inevitability has made clear to America’s cities that they face a new reality in Washington…”
• Milwaukee agencies brace for impact of federal cuts in aid to poor, By Georgia Pabst, February 27, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Programs designed to help the poor such as Head Start, energy assistance, education and training could be cut drastically under federal budget proposals that have been made by President Barack Obama and the U.S. House. Local and national officials who work in programs that assist low-income people are watching carefully as the House and the U.S. Senate take up measures to fund federal programs for the remainder of the year and the 2012 budget, but they say it seems clear that many programs aimed at those with low incomes will be trimmed. One of the biggest cuts proposed by Obama is to reduce Community Service Block Grants by half – from $700 million to $350 million. The grants go to anti-poverty agencies such as Milwaukee’s Social Development Commission…”