Cleveland City Hall is still waiting to hear how much money President Donald Trump’s administration will award this year for housing assistance, vacant lot cleanups, HIV/AIDS services and a range of other work.
Last year the city received $28.3 million from U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development programs. The largest amount came through the Community Development Block Grant program, which has sent federal aid to low-and middle-income communities since 1974.
The spending bill that Trump signed this month slates $3.4 billion for the block grant program nationwide. Cleveland, which supports 81 city workers and numerous programs with the dollars, hasn’t yet heard how much of that money it will receive, Community Development Director Alyssa Hernandez said.
“We just really don’t have insight,” she said last week. Nor do others in her field, she added. At a recent grant management conference in Washington, D.C., Hernandez said that attendees were asking each other, “Have you heard anything?”
Cleveland is waiting until HUD shares allocation details before submitting its annual grant spending plan to the federal government, a city spokesperson said.
The city is used to some springtime uncertainty around HUD money. Last year, Mayor Justin Bibb’s administration didn’t present City Council with its budget for HUD grants until late May, when the city knew exactly how much it was receiving from the federal government.
But this year, as the Trump administration cuts government staff, there’s greater weight to the unknown.
Estimating how much money is coming from HUD is “always kind of conjecture mathematics,” Hernandez said. Sometimes the city’s estimates are a couple million dollars off from HUD’s award amount, she said. Now Hernandez said the city is “asking a different level of questions.”
“Where things feel a little shaky is, will it come through at the end?” she said of the HUD money. “Those are just things that we quite frankly can’t answer right now and nobody has insight on it. It’s a scary place to be in. We have real deep needs in this community.”
Hernandez hopes to hear more from HUD in the coming weeks, she said. The federal agency did not return an email seeking comment.
Cities unsure ‘what is on the table and what is not’
Cleveland isn’t the only city standing by for news. Columbus officials are also waiting for word about funding. Melanie Crabill, the city’s media relations director, noted that HUD did not announce its 2024 allocations until May.
City leaders are grappling with uncertainty about the future of every federal revenue stream, not just HUD block grants, according to Keary McCarthy, the director of the Ohio Mayors Alliance. One cause for concern is the January memo from the White House Office of Management and Budget ordering a pause in federal financial assistance, he said. The White House rescinded the memo within days.
“The pause that OBM did two months ago or thereabouts I think has everyone on edge, not knowing exactly what is on the table and what is not at the federal level,” McCarthy said.
The money is a big deal for cities. Last year, Cleveland budgeted HUD dollars to build and repair homes, demolish condemned structures, renovate storefronts, house people with HIV/AIDS, trim trees and support community gardens, to cite several examples.
On Cleveland’s West Side, federal block grant dollars support the Mi Casa housing program, which is run by the nonprofit Spanish American Committee. The program helps English- and Spanish-speaking homebuyers navigate the world of credit scores and mortgage lenders to land their first homes.
The nonprofit can pay its housing counselor thanks to $73,500 in federal block grant money from City Hall. The current round of funds runs through the end of June, according to Spanish American Committee director Ramonita Vargas.
Last year, the program helped 84 people buy new homes, she said. The nonprofit usually applies for the grant each April. (A city spokesperson told Signal Cleveland that City Hall will launch a quick application process “as soon as funding is secured.”)
Without the money, the Spanish American Committee would have to come up with dollars elsewhere to keep paying the housing coordinator, who is “really, really good at what she’s doing,” Vargas said.
“Right now, to tell you the honest truth, I have no idea what — I don’t even want to cross that bridge right now,” Vargas said. “Because we have a great program here.”
