Playground trees, affordable children's athletic programs and power doors for disabled people were among the items discussed during a public hearing on federal grants Tuesday.
Representatives from three Evanston organizations spoke about community needs for the 2009-2010 Community Development Block Grant program at the Housing and Community Development Act Committee meeting.
The community also had an opportunity to comment on the Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report. The report reviews how the city used federal funding provided by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development to implement programs and projects that address community needs between March 2007 and March 2008.
Evanston received $2,625,391 in Housing and Urban Development funds during that period. Most of the money was from the grant, which is intended to help residents of low- and moderate-income areas. Evanston's CDBG target areas are concentrated in the western and southern parts of city, mainly in the Second, Fifth and Eighth Wards.
Although the funds should be mainly directed at people whose income is between 30 percent and 80 percent of the area's median income, they can support a variety of social services and capital improvements, Evanston CDBG Administrator Sarah Flax said.
"It's a very flexible funding stream, unlike many other federal funding programs," she said.
The grant doesn't usually fund the entire cost of the project, Flax said. Rather, the committee usually gives the project a portion of the cost, hoping the organization will be able to find additional support from other sources.
But the focus of Tuesday's meeting quickly turned to how the money would be spent next year.
During the hearing on community needs for the 2009-2010 grant program, Washington Elementary School parent Jenni Suvari explained the need for trees in the school's playground. Suvari, the Parent Teacher Association landscape chairwoman, plans to apply for grant funding so the school can plant trees to form a "canopy" over the play area, which will cost about $18,000.
2008 Woodie Awards
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