Midland Getting Close to One Million in Federal Funding
By: Stephanie Sobic
Updated: June 8, 2010
The City of Midland is getting close to a million dollars from the federal government. It's part of the community development block grant. Each year the city uses this money to fund projects, that otherwise might not get financial supported.
This federal grant specifically funds, housing and service programs that support low to moderate income areas in the city. In 2004, the city came up with five of those target areas to use the grant money on. And, with a million dollars coming in, we decided to take a look at how this grant can improve an area.
"[The grant] can be used for public services parks, infrastructure like streets, water improvements, housing programs, just a variety of different things," says Community Development Administrator, Sylvester Cantu.
The success of this grant is not only a lifestyle improvement for people in Midland, but a visual improvement as well.
"One is the Bradford Park area, if you take a snap shot of what it looked like your seeing 40-50 new houses in that area and a brand new park," says Cantu.
A complete transformation.
"As a concrete effort, over the years we've had a lot of activities where you can go to a particular project, you can see these segments of streets, you can see housing that's been improved," says Cantu.
The city does rely on this grant because it funds projects that financially can't be backed by the city every year; projects like affordable housing and homeless needs.
"A priority close behind that is park improvement and public services and senior services," explains Cantu.
Tonight the city is holding a public meeting on this community grant and they're looking for your feed back; what you think is a priority for this grant money to fund. The meeting is tonight at 7 inside City Hall.
