BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — In March, the Bakersfield City Council approved an allocation plan amendment on behalf of the HOME-American Rescue Plan Program. The program provides municipalities with federal funding to reduce homelessness and increase housing stability.
Assistant Director of Economic and Community Development for the City of Bakersfield Jenni Byers says the program is meant to benefit communities like Bakersfield.
"The HOME-ARP is one-time funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. It's part of the Home Investment Partnerships Program under the American Rescue Plan. With that, the City of Bakersfield is eligible for about $5.4 million dollars with the submission of an allocation plan," said Byers.
According to Byers, outreach activities among stakeholders and community members took place last year to determine how the funds should be spent.
"Stakeholders. When you're typically talking about housing projects, you speak with developers. You speak with Continuum of Care. Any group that is kind of associated with serving the population," said Byers. "That's when we held the community meetings, after that."
Byers says there are 4 eligible activities under this program: The production or preservation of affordable housing, tenant-based rental assistance, supportive services such as homelessness prevention and housing counseling, and the purchase and development of new public housing with individual rooms for tenants.
"What we ended up proposing based on the feedback was a little over $4 million dollars to be allocated to the development of affordable housing, close to $600,000 will be set aside for supportive services, with the remaining to be distributed to nonprofit capacity building and for administration of the grant," said Byers.
Byers says these funds are critical when it comes to combating the issue of homelessness and the provision of affordable housing in Bakersfield, where, Byers adds, there is roughly a 1 percent vacancy rate.
"This means if you're the one looking for housing, you're going to have a really hard time finding apartments. With this, when we can construct more units, when we can assist in that, we anticipate this assisting in about 100 units of construction," said Byers. "I think that's really where the city is going to see benefit."
According to Byers, as of this month, the allocation plan is in the hands of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. She says they expect to hear back within 60 days to see if HUD has any comment on their plan and whether the city can begin to move forward.
