Six Franklin County municipalities are benefiting from a total of $3.9 million in Community Development Block Grants that will support housing, social services, water quality and infrastructure projects.
The CDBG program is available to fund housing and economic development projects that “assist low- and moderate-income residents or revitalize areas of blight,” according to the Healey-Driscoll administration’s funding announcement. Of the 65 communities across the state that were awarded part of the $39 million total, the local allocations are going to Greenfield, Orange, Montague, Buckland, Ashfield and Colrain.
Greenfield is receiving $925,000 for the design of downtown water main replacements, microenterprise assistance, the rehabilitation of four housing units and social services.
“It makes a huge difference,” said Anna Oltman, Greenfield’s community development administrator. “A lot of things just could not happen without these funds from the state.”
She explained that $250,000 will be used for housing rehabilitation, executed through a partnership with Community Action Pioneer Valley. Money will rehabilitate four housing units and the rest will be set aside for emergency repairs to bring them into code compliance. Much of the rehabilitation work will consist of lead and asbestos remediation.
“We don’t have a good sense of how far that quarter of a million dollars will go until we select the homes,” she explained, adding that she hopes that will happen in October.
Oltman said housing rehabilitation is something Greenfield undertook for about a decade before the COVID-19 pandemic. It applies to qualifying homeowners and there is a waitlist.
“A good chunk of the housing stock in Greenfield was built in the 1940s and earlier,” she noted.
Oltman said $201,751 will go toward the bid-ready design and engineering of water main replacements in Greenfield’s downtown Central Commercial zoning district. The bid/design stage is calculated at 15% of construction costs. Water main replacements will take place over approximately the next five years.
“It’s a priority for the city to replace its water pipes,” Oltman said, adding that most were installed in the 1910s and 1920s. She said design and engineering is needed before applying for grants for the actual work itself.
A total of $112,500, executed through a partnership with Franklin County Community Development Corporation, will go toward workshops for potential small business owners and investment capital for qualified microenterprises. Oltman explained the money will help staff one-on-one advising for low- to moderate-income people who own very small businesses.
The $185,000 designated for social services will be divvied up into $50,000 for Community Legal Aid’s Homelessness Prevention Project, $44,200 for the Wildflower Alliance’s Homelessness Prevention Greenfield expansion, $40,800 for the Stone Soup Café Community Free Store, $35,000 for the Center for Human Development’s Greenfield Elder Wellness program, and $15,000 for the Center for New Americans’ Fostering Immigrant Self-Sufficiency Program.
Walker Powell, Orange’s community development director and conservation agent, said Orange was awarded $689,464. Following a request from residents, part of this money will be used to fund the installation of audible pedestrian signals — which make a chirping sound to inform people who are visually impaired it is safe to cross a street — at the main-streets intersection, the intersection of South Main Street and East River Street, and the intersection near the Walmart on East Main Street.
Powell said money will also be used on social services, rehabilitation projects on four housing units and a “slum and blight study,” which she explained assesses the overall condition of an area to allow for an easier and quicker path toward funding infrastructure projects there. The area of town that will be studied is just east of North Main Street, across from Orange Town Hall. Powell explained the roads need work, and the water and sewer lines under the roadway are very old.
Montague was awarded $938,328 for town projects that residents had the chance to provide input on during a February public hearing. The town asked for money for social services, public parking lot repaving and housing rehabilitation.
The grant includes funding for elder efficiency programs, home meal deliveries, literacy programs for migrant children and peer support programs. Funding was also awarded for Montague’s public parking lot repaving project and townwide housing rehabilitation.
“Montague will use this grant to support our most vulnerable residents by investing in social services, housing rehabilitation and physical infrastructure,” Montague Town Administrator Walter Ramsey said in a statement. “By focusing this substantial investment toward Montague’s most economically disadvantaged residents, we strengthen the community as a whole.”
Buckland, Colrain and Ashfield submitted a joint grant application that was spearheaded by Buckland, with help from the Franklin County Regional Housing & Redevelopment Authority. The towns were awarded $1,375,000.
Brian McHugh, community development director at the housing authority, explained that the three towns submitted the joint application seeking funding to rehabilitate a total of 16 housing units.
“We’re just happy that we can continue this program,” McHugh said, noting that the funding is used to “provide an affordable means” for people who need home repairs, energy efficiency upgrades or to correct code violations, but who “don’t have the disposable income to secure conventional loans from banks to get their houses fixed up.”
