Community members in Erie had another chance to make their voices heard on how federal housing dollars should be used across the city.
The latest public hearing marked another opportunity for residents to listen, learn, and share input on how grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) should be allocated. The funding is intended to support community development, emergency housing solutions, and home investment partnerships.
According to Erie Mayor Daria Devlin, “We received our final allocations from HUD, so we know how much we are going to get. This is our final proposal for how to spend it. This is our second set of public hearings, we still have to go to City Council, so we still have a couple steps and more opportunities to hear from the public.”
Right now, the proposed funding is expected to be distributed across Community Development Block Grants, HOME Investment Partnerships, and Emergency Solutions programs.
A major takeaway from the meeting on Monday morning was the importance of collaboration between community organizations and city leaders.
Local nonprofit leaders also spoke about the need for additional funding to continue their work.
Shantel Hillard, the Executive Director of the Booker T. Washington Center, emphasized the importance of investing in youth programs especially with the summer season approaching, “We try to provide teachers in the summer. We try to provide other supports, feeding them in the morning, at lunch, and a snack and keeping them off the streets, because that’s the most important for the summer. We want to make sure these dollars are utilized to keep these youth busy during the summer, keep them off the streets, but maintain that literacy portion as well.”
Hillard added that collaboration will be essential to secure more resources moving forward. According to Hillard, “We are going to work with the city to find more dollars and work as a collaboration to bring more dollars to our organization and the city of Erie as well.”
Mayor Devlin said she is on board with that plan as well, “I fully support them and their work. This is critical work in our community—they have a lot of needs. I think the important comment we heard today from Mr. Hillard was, ‘we need to get together to see how we can leverage the dollars the city is giving them to see what else we can do.’”
Another public hearing is scheduled for 6 p.m. in City Council chambers on Monday night, giving residents another chance to weigh in.
The final proposed plan is expected to be presented to City Council in June.