Title
Receive a report on the County’s 2025 Legislative Platform and 2025 Strategic Grant Program and provide direction to staff.
Body
RECOMMENDATION:
It is recommended that the Housing Advisory Committee receive a report on the County’s 2025 Legislative Platform and 2025 Strategic Grant Program and provide direction to staff.
SUMMARY/DISCUSSION:
The County maintains a long-standing and successful Legislative Program, ensuring that the interests of the County are well represented in Sacramento and Washington, D.C. The County’s Legislative Platform provides a broad policy overview of programs and projects that the County would like to see state or federal legislation to support and unfunded programs and projects that could be eligible for grant funding.
On January 28, 2025, the Board of Supervisors adopted the County’s 2025 Legislative Platform and Strategic Grant Program. The Strategic Grant Program identifies all the unfunded County needs that may be assisted through state or federal grants and eight priorities for the 2025. None of the priorities specifically address affordable housing, but providing clean drinking water in San Lucas will open the opportunity for CHISPA to construct its Valley Views Subdivision. Valley Views will result in 33-units of self-help owner-occupied housing.
The Legislative Platform generally supports increased funding for the Community Development Block Grant Program (CDBG [federal]), HOME Investment Partnership Act (federal), and Homekey (state) grant programs. The County is currently a CDBG Urban County. This designation allows the County to receive an annual non-competitive CDBG award. In 2024, this award was approximately $1.2 million. The County is not a HOME Participating Jurisdiction and must compete for these funds annually through the state’s HOME program. The County, in partnership with cities in the County, may seek designation as a Participating Jurisdiction as part its effort to establish a regional housing trust f...
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