Celebrate national Community Development Week in Missoula County
Missoula County Board of Commissioners
National Community Development Week, April 10-14, celebrates the impact and accomplishments of the U.S. Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME Investment Partnerships programs across the country.
These federal grant programs help build stronger and more resilient communities. CDBG funds support housing rehabilitation, emergency rental assistance, affordable housing development, public infrastructure projects, small business assistance and a wide array of public service programming. HOME program funds support affordable rental housing development, direct rental assistance, housing rehabilitation and home buying assistance.
Both programs target assistance to low-income households and are available to Montana communities on a competitive grant-submission basis through the Montana Department of Commerce.
In recognition of this important funding, we would like to highlight a few of the beneficial CDBG-funded projects in Missoula. This past year, county staff worked with the Poverello Center to secure a $600,000 CDBG grant to help create 20 non-shared units of housing for members of the Housing Montana Heroes program. Missoula County strongly supports efforts to house our veterans and was excited to assist with this program.
To support the Missoula Food Bank’s distribution outside the city and help households that have experienced economic hardship and food insecurity since the pandemic, county staff secured over $250,000 in CDBG funds to provide continued support to residents in Lolo, Bonner and Futura Mobile Home Park.
This program has helped provide fresh and nonperishable food to more than 100 families, starting in January 2022 and continuing through June 2024. The communities of Lolo and Bonner receive groceries twice a month, and a mobile meal bus delivers groceries to the Futura community during school out days and weekly during summer break.
Missoula County continues to partner with the District XI Human Resource Council to assist low- and moderate-income households outside of city limits with housing rehabilitation projects. By tackling health, safety and accessibility issues in homes, we can preserve the existing housing stock for residents, support our local construction sector and give a little boost to our local economy.
The County secured $450,000 in CDBG funding, among other sources of federal funds, to support wastewater system improvements at the Buena Vista Community, a manufactured home community west of the Missoula Airport. Buena Vista became a resident-owned community in 2013, allowing self-determination that has kept housing affordable in their community. Infrastructure improvements in manufactured home communities is one example of a long-term investment in affordable housing.
In the next year, we will continue to support projects that benefit our community and our residents so Missoula County continues to be the best place to live, work and play.
Josh Slotnick, Juanita Vero and Dave Strohmaier, Missoula County commissioners