This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Community Development Block Grant (
CDBG), a
program that helps support community development activities like economic development projects, community centers, housing rehabilitation, and more.
Macomb County has been a part of the program since its inception and within the last five years, has received an annual grant amount of around $1.8 million.
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Brittany MohrCDBG is made possible through the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD Exchange) and Macomb Grant Management Specialist Brittany Mohr says the counties can distribute these grants to communities that fit within the criteria. In their
consolidated plan, that means cities that fall under the population size of 50,000.
“This is an incredible opportunity for communities, especially smaller communities like us that don’t have a huge budget at all to be able to put in amenities that are for the residents,” says Kim Homan, assistant city manager for Eastpointe.
Communities can apply for these grants to help with things such as redoing their parks, repairing sidewalks, streetlighting, and more. Cities can apply yearly and choose what they feel is a priority for their community.
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Meghan Flaherty“There are different brackets of factors that go into a population accessing needs and gaps,” says Meghan Flaherty, another Grant Management Specialist within the county. Low-income neighborhoods, disability, health status, and age play a role in who may receive these grants.
The Projects in Macomb County
One of Macomb County’s biggest projects was Roxana Park in Eastpointe.
City parks are
known to strengthen local economies, build resilience, reduce crime rates, and improve the public's health.
This project was completed in 2023 and cost $150,000 to rebuild the park. Before the addition of the new playground, there was an unoccupied elementary school until it got demolished, leaving just a slide and a swingset without swings in a big empty lot.
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Before photo: Roxana Park before it received an upgrade through the CDBG grants.
“Now, it has a gazebo, swings, slides, and everything is bright, primary colors so it really stands out as you’re driving along the neighborhood,” Homan says.
Macomb Township Senior Center was also part of the CDBG program. This project was completed last year to help expand what the center could do with its events and senior programming, Mohr says.
“They did a whole renovation of their kitchen, bathrooms,” Mohr says. “They are expanding their parking lot so they can accommodate more for their senior events.”
Another project in Eastpointe is Solar Street Lighting, which was partially funded through these grants. The project works in phases, focusing on two to three streets at a time in generally lower-income areas, costing nearly half a million dollars. In the first phase in 2023, there were 16 lights put up and in the second phase, which is currently underway, they are putting up nine lights.
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Solar Streetlight Program, City of Eastpointe
Most of these lights are and will continue to be placed in the southern region of the city. Streets involved in the project include Shakespeare Street, Piper Avenue, Collinson Avenue, Lincoln Avenue, Veronica Avenue, Sprenger Avenue, Ego Avenue, Juliana Avenue, Stricker Avenue, and more.
“We have very long blocks and the only street lights we have are at the intersections so there’s areas on the blocks that are very dark,” Homan says. “These solar street lights allowed us to put in lighting that was without the cost of electricity or putting the lines in so this was much more economical.”
“On top of that we're trying to alleviate slum and blight so with putting in these solar lights, we’re trying to reduce crime,” Flaherty says. A
study done in Detroit showed that neighborhoods that were more brightly lit with street lights saw a decrease in crime rate.
Flaherty adds they’d like for the whole city to convert to solar street lighting.
The Impact of CDBG and Looking Ahead
This program helps fill in gaps where communities wouldn’t be able to carry out those projects, Mohr says. A city may not be able to put funding towards renewing its sidewalks or parks, so that’s where these grants step in.
“You’ve got smaller communities that may not have general funding and may never get general funding to do a park for these low-income neighborhoods,” Flaherty says. “So these kids can have a playground or so they have nicer street resurfacing or nice sidewalks they can walk on.”
The typical feedback we receive is generally positive, Mohr says.
“The Chair of our Parks Commission, Gary Sasek who lives near the park said there was such a huge difference in the neighborhood to have Roxana Park there,” Homan says. “[Sasek said] the kids love the equipment, they are using it all the time and the addition of the gazebo was the perfect addition to the park because now people are hosting birthday parties or family cookouts right in their neighborhood.”
Homan says with the street lighting project, residents were skeptical about having these lights put up but have now seen the positive impact it’s had on the neighborhood.
“There were people who came out and we’re like ‘Oh, I don’t know if I really want that in the right of way at the corner of my yard’ and then they noticed this is making a big difference because now they can see the neighborhood at night,” Homan says.
Even with the great impacts this program has made to these communities, the amount of funding has remained relatively the same.
“We’ve seen the drastic increase of prices so if we’re doing construction projects that are lumber or concrete or we’re doing street repaving, we used to easily be able to do those for under $100,000 for a project and now the prices have gone up and up,” Mohr says.
On top of stagnant funding, not every community applies for these grants because it takes a lot of administrative work on their end to facilitate this work, Mohr says.
The goal is to receive an increase in these grants but it’s all up to HUD, Flaherty says.
In the future, the county is looking at similar projects like street repaving, redoing sidewalks, revamping or installing new playground equipment, ADA accessibility, and solar street lighting.
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Roxana Park