The “lion’s share” of a giant catastrophe aid bundle is headed for California, stated Marcia Fudge, secretary of Housing and City Improvement, who visited Santa Barbara Friday morning to make the announcement and to verify in on two homeless housing tasks that obtain funding from the federal division she leads.
“Hit laborious and extra typically” by the winter’s large storms, California will obtain $115 million out of a complete $138 million in help attributable to floods, muds, and wind harm. Alabama is to obtain $10 million and Georgia $12 million for related pure disasters plus tornadoes.
“Disasters are coming increasingly more often,” the cupboard secretary instructed an meeting of public officers and reporters gathered at Direct Reduction. Fudge feels for native affairs; earlier than turning into President Biden’s HUD secretary, she represented a lot of Ohio’s Cuyahoga County in Congress for 12 years and was the mayor of Warrensville Heights for eight years earlier than that.
With Secretary Fudge was Congressmember Salud Carbajal, to whom she stated that Congress ought to permit HUD to take motion sooner.
“My job is to assist folks rebuild. I take it personally,” Fudge stated. “This help is for storms that occurred nearly a yr in the past. We are able to’t are available till FEMA makes its experiences and tells HUD what is required. Let HUD take motion sooner,” she asserted.
Secretary Fudge later instructed the Unbiased that President Biden has included within the subsequent federal price range a everlasting quantity for HUD’s Group Improvement Block Grant for catastrophe restoration. That will assist to hurry HUD’s restoration funding after a catastrophe, she stated. Whether or not the price range will move is unknown, nevertheless, as Kevin McCarthy, in his quest to develop into Speaker of the Home, made offers with conservative Republicans that gave them larger energy to kill spending will increase.
After attending the quarterly assembly of metropolis and county managers and officers to debate catastrophe aid and homelessness, Secretary Fudge continued on to Buena Tierra, a everlasting supportive housing venture nonetheless beneath building on the former Tremendous 8 motel in Goleta. Accompanied by John Polanskey — the persuasive and protracted director of housing growth for the Housing Authority for Santa Barbara County who noticed the property slip out of his fingers one yr solely to regain it the following — Fudge took within the room that may develop into a gathering space in addition to one of many small housing items.
One among Buena Tierra’s greatest supporters has been Yardi Methods, which produces software program methods for property administration. “They had been the primary to step as much as the plate,” stated Polanskey. Yardi not solely created the software program the Housing Authority makes use of, “however they make the software program that HUD makes use of to handle your properties,” he instructed Fudge.
The group from HUD had arrived from a go to to San Bernardino yesterday and was capable of get pleasure from a night meal in Santa Barbara, stated Andra Higgs, a spokesperson for the regional HUD workplace. “We even had time for a bicycle journey this morning,” he stated, accustomed to the realm from his days at Dos Pueblos Excessive Faculty and Goleta Valley Junior Excessive earlier than that.
The group ended their tour of the realm on the Gardens of Hope, a low-income senior housing venture fundraised, constructed, and managed by the Housing Authority of the Metropolis of Santa Barbara. Because the company does for a lot of very low-income residents within the county, HUD gives housing vouchers for seniors residing on the 89 studios, which had been accomplished in 2020.
