BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — A $25 million grant funded in federal housing & urban development awarded to the City of Bakersfield. Organizers created a survey for community members to share their input on how to spend it.
- This grant should last the city until 2029.
- Funds can be spent on community development, affordable housing, homelessness, among other organizations
- Survey is open for another three weeks.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
The City of Bakersfield wants your help to decide what they should spend their money on with their new HUD grant. I'm Eric J. Dockery your Bakersfield neighborhood reporter. The public is invited to help decide how $25 million in federal housing and urban development funds will be spend for the next 5 years.
The city plans on separating this money into four separate funds to provide for different areas in the city that need attention.
Jenni Byers The economic and community developer for the City of Bakersfield said "Into four pots of what we need to spend so there's community development, which is kind of the curb and our sidewalks projects, or the senior center. Then there is home funds, about a quarter of the funding for affordable housing construction. We also have a program for housing people with aids that's also a part of it. Then we have our emergency solutions grant."
This isn't the first time the city received this grant. It applied in 2019 originally and received the same amount of funding. Those funds were split up between multiple organizations.
"As you can see in our center today we have seniors in here, without those funds. We wouldn't be able to assist seniors who come in here either food insecure, lonely, we do provide socialization for them, as well as a nutritional program." said by Lilli Parker Executive Director at the Bakersfield Senior Center.
The funds were used for multiple things in the senior center, providing food, new fitness instructors for the seniors, computers and programs to help them keep attendance of the seniors. Alongside..."We were also able to receive a 13x9 walk-in freezer" said Parker
Parker tells me being able to afford the freezer helped the center during covid when they had to still provide for those who were in need of help. She tells me the process for applying is very competitive but they plan on communicating with the city again for this grant to see what funds are available for the center.
"I was able to look at the dates see what we have done in the past bring it forward and apply with current data. As far as how many people we fit, what zip code were our clients from, what impact would the funding have on the people." said Parker
Community members can scan the QR code on the screen to access a 20 question survey asking what changes they would like to see in the next five years. There's one English code and one in espanol.
Byres said "If you were to receive this money, where would you want it to go? Would you want it to go to homeless services, do you want to see more of these community improvements. Those are the type of questions. What we will do with all those surveys, we will gather all information, come up with a plan based on whats ranked the highest. Then see if we can have the resources be dedicated to those areas."
If you would like to still give your input you still have three weeks left to submit your survey to the city. For 23 ABC I'm Eric J. Dockery your Bakerfield neighborhood reporter
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