Medford, along with seven other Boston suburbs, is asking for input from residents as it develops a new plan to spend funding it receives as part of two separate programs through the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The funding comes through the HOME Investment Partnership Program and the Community Development Block Grant Program. The former program funds the development of affordable housing and direct rental assistance to low-income residents, while the latter program funds a broader range of community development needs.
According to Laurel Siegel, Medford’s CDBG and grants manager, the city has directed these funds toward “everything from transportation for our seniors and residents with disabilities, food assistance programs, assistance for individuals with Alzheimer’s, after-school programs [and] scholarship programs.”
One of the organizations funded by Medford through this program is Action for Boston Community Development, a nonprofit that provides a wide range of services to people experiencing poverty.
“ABCD receives funding from the City of Medford’s Community Development Block Grant to provide rental and utility assistance for Medford residents who are in arrears,” Ntando Dube, ABCD’s deputy director of housing and homelessness prevention, wrote in an email to the Daily.
The organization provides as much as $1,200 in assistance per family, with eligibility restricted to those who earn “at or below 80% [of] area median income,” Dube wrote. “However most of the clients we serve are at or below 30% AMI which is around 39,000 for a family of two.”
The grant’s funding also goes toward infrastructure projects such as roads and parks, assistance for local businesses and a new pilot program that has allowed low- and moderate-income residents to make essential home repairs.
Siegel expressed uncertainty about how the recent reelection of President-elect Donald Trump will affect the future of these two programs.
“We have no idea what the change of administration may mean,” she said. “We do know what happened during the prior [Trump] administration and that there was some movement towards reducing or eliminating this aid. Is that likely to occur again? Anything’s possible. So we have to be prepared for that.”
During Trump’s first term, each of his four annual budget proposals would have eliminated both programs’ funding from the federal budget.
Even without cuts at the federal level, however, Siegel does not know exactly how much funding Medford will be allotted.
“The entitlement has gone down year to year, not necessarily because anything has been cut by the federal government but because more and more communities around the country have been signing on to be entitlement communities, so the pie is being split by that many more communities,” she said. “So it’s always a question mark. We don’t know year to year how much funding is going to come.”
Every five years, Medford develops a new “consolidated plan” with the North Suburban Consortium, which includes the cities of Arlington, Chelsea, Everett, Malden, Melrose, Revere and Winthrop. The consortium sets regional goals together, and each city then sets its own subgoals.
One of the largest areas of focus for Medford and the consortium in the current funding cycle is developing more affordable housing. Siegel expects that focus to continue in the next consolidated plan.
“The need for affordable housing … has continued to grow,” she said. “So I think that will continue to be a very high priority for us.”
Medford City Councilor Matt Leming spoke to some of the factors that contribute to a lack of affordable housing in the city.
“It’s a problem [caused] in part by the fact that labor is just more expensive these days. Materials are often shipped from overseas, so the prices have gone up across the board,” he said. “More and more, real estate is seen as this thing that the ultra-wealthy can invest in, and it’s not actually seen as a place that people live. So it’s another mechanism for a few people to extract wealth, which means that a lot of other people do end up suffering as a result.”
Leming said that, while his constituents generally voiced support for affordable housing while he was campaigning during the recent election, the issue can fade once candidates are elected to office.
“The people that need affordable housing the most are usually not the people that are coming and making themselves heard to local elected officials,” he said. “[I try] to keep that in mind when governing.”
Siegel urged residents to fill out the city’s survey before Nov. 29. The results will help to shape the programs’ funding priorities for the next five years.
“We really encourage people to take that survey because the public input is the backbone of this program,” she said. “It should and will be based on what the community wants to see with this fund, not what city hall wants.”
