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Pittsfield's Community Development Action Plan Released For Public Comment

The Pittsfield city seal
The City of Pittsfield, Massachusetts
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City of Pittsfield
Today is the first day of our 30-day public comment period for our draft Annual Action Plan.

The City of Pittsfield, Massachusetts has released a draft of its annual Community Development Action Plan, which outlines how federal grant funds will be used to address housing and community development needs for the next year.

The budget is estimated at $1.4 million — $1.1 million of which is from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The extra $300,000 is from program revenue and carryover from last year.

“Today is the first day of our 30-day public comment period for our draft Annual Action Plan,” Bonnie Galant says.

Bonnie Galant, the director of the city’s Department of Community Development, says HUD issues funds to what it calls entitlement communities "which means based on the city's population, their poverty level, their housing stock age, and the amount of overcrowded housing" to provide funding for programs to benefit low- and moderate-income communities.

Pittsfield is on HUD’s entitlement list because of its old buildings, and low-income households.

“For example, a one-person household is considered low-income, by HUD definitions, if they are earning $46,000 or less a year,” Galant says.

Two-person households are eligible if they make less than $52,600 a year, and three-person households are if they make less than $59,150 a year and so on. Galant says a lot of Pittsfield residents are eligible for the programs because of the city’s large elderly community, and single mothers. 

The action plan will be submitted to HUD after the public review and comment window is over. The exact dollar amount of this year’s grant award has not been released because Congress has not yet approved the federal budget.

And that could pose a problem.

Since the late 1970s, when Pittsfield started to receive HUD funding, the city has been awarded over $64 million in total — but funding has decreased dramatically in the last decade. 

Justine Dodds is a housing specialist who runs the city’s housing rehabilitation program, which helps homeowners make code-related repairs like installing roofs and abating lead paint.

“Nuts and bolts rehab like plumbing, wiring, those kinds of issues. We also do handicap accessible modification,” Dodds says.

Her office also takes care of emergency housing work related to heating systems and broken sewer lines.

“But there really aren't a lot of other options for homeowners who need assistance in maintaining and rehabbing their property,” Dodds says. “And as you know, most of our housing stock in Pittsfield is pre-1930s. So it’s, you know, we have an aging housing stock that really needs these programs to assist.”

Dodds wears another hat as the manager of the city’s human service grant funds that gives money to non-profits, “and those are, run the gamut of all kinds of services from UCP in Pittsfield, to homeless programs and shelters, to Berkshire Children and Families, to daycare programs, nutrition programs, you know, you name it.”

She says the funding for these programs is crucial, and every dollar makes a difference.

Residents can view and make public comments on the 2018 Annual Action Plan draft until May 9th

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