- March 24, 2009
Sen. Carper and Kaufman Announce Public Housing Funds
WASHINGTON – Sens. Tom Carper and Ted Kaufman (both D-Del.) today announced that public housing authorities in Delaware can begin spending more than $7 million to improve public housing units under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which both U.S. senators voted for last month.
“We are pleased the economic recovery funds we worked hard to secure are finally being filtered into states to help jumpstart Delaware’s economy, create more jobs and provide more economic security for residents across our state,” said Sens. Carper and Kaufman. “The HUD grant will help many in Delaware by improving homes and energy efficiency. The new transportation funding is designed to decrease harmful greenhouse gases and lower our energy consumption and costs. We believe everyone deserves a safe home to live in and safe air to breathe. These economic recovery funds get us two steps closer to those goals.”
The White House announced today that nearly $3 billion in new economic recovery funds will go out to address the backlog of under-funded capital improvement projects across the United States.
The senators said Delaware will receive $7,067,910 through Housing and Urban Developments’ Public Housing Capital Fund Program, allowing state housing agencies to improve public housing units, create jobs and increase energy efficiency.
“WHA is excited about the opportunities that the stimulus funds will provide,” said Fred Purnell, Executive Director of the Wilmington Housing Authority. “The funds will be used to significantly reduce our backlog of long-term vacant units and other long-delayed capital improvements including demolition. We anticipate we will be able to address more than 300 units with this money.”
The funding is divided among four Delaware housing authorities:
· Wilmington Housing Authority $5,256,206
· Dover Housing Authority $ 611,790
· Newark Housing Authority $ 172,044
· Delaware State Housing Authority $1,027,870
HUD’s Capital Fund Program provides annual funding to public housing authorities to develop, finance, and modernize the public housing in their communities. This funding can also be used to make larger improvements, including new roofs and replacement of plumbing and electrical systems to make buildings in Delaware more energy efficient.
Sens. Carper and Kaufman also praised the Department of Transportation’s announcement today of $100 million in federal funding under the same economic recovery legislation for the Transit Investments for Greenhouse Gas and Energy Reduction (TIGGER) grant program.
States like Delaware will compete for a portion of these new transportation funds based on how much their proposed capital investment will reduce either energy consumption or greenhouse gases, or both. The maximum proposal amount is $25 million, and the minimum amount is $2 million.
Multiple transit agencies will be allowed to consolidate their projects within one proposal to reach the minimum level. In addition to the anticipated reduction in energy or greenhouse gasses, the projects will be rated on their return on investment, that is, whether the project is ready to implement, the capacity of the applicant to implement, the degree of innovation in a project, and the national applicability of a project.