San José’s Housing Department held a virtual Zoom meeting discussing itsits application proposal for the Pathways to Removing Obstaclesto Housing and Urban Development Grant on Wednesday.
The Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing Grant’s purpose is to identify and remove barriers to affordable housing production and preservation, according to the official U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development website.
The goals of the Housing and Urban Development Pathways to Removing Obstacles program is to actively take steps to remove barriers towards affordable housing, according to the same website.
This includes barriers caused by outdated zoning land, lack of neighborhood amenities, deteriorating infrastructures and gaps in available funding for development according to the same website.
San José’s Housing Department currently has until the application deadline on Oct. 30 to finalize the proposal and send it in.
Some of the other program’s goals are to also enable promising practices for identifying and removing barriers to affordable housing, according to the same source.
The program also aims to prevent displacement, according to the same website.
Mindy Nguyen, a development officer of the San José Housing Department, hosted the Zoom meeting and said what San José’s Housing Department’s plans were, if they’re approved.
San José’s Housing Department has four main activities it plans on implementing to get approval for the grant.
“There are four activities that further develop, evaluate and implement housing policy plans, improve housing strategies and facilitate affordable housing production and preservation,” Nguyen said. “We can do activities in planning and policy, development, infrastructure and in preservation.”
Nguyen said that San José’s application for the grant will be mainly focused on preservation.
Rachel VanderVeen, the assistant director of the Housing Department of San José, said they are seeking funding that will help fund an acquisition rehab program.
“We want to go and support partners who are acquiring and rehabbing existing market rate housing, making it affordable to households in San José who are at or below 80% of the area median income,” VanderVeen said. “We want to secure federal funding in order to preserve housing here in San José.”
VanderVeen said she believes the proposal aligns with what the Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing and Urban Development Housing program is looking for in its recipients for the grants.
The total grant amount is $85 million, and it will be awarding around 20 grants, according to the official U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development website. State governments, country governments, city or township governments, metropolitan planning organizations and multi-jurisdictional entities who are eligible to apply for grants.
Each grants’ size will be between $1 million to $10 million to the same source.
Sandy Perry, a representative for South Bay Community Land Trust, was an attendee of the meeting and said she was thankful for the housing department for putting in the application.
“The need for this (grant) is obvious and extreme,” Perry said. “Actually, we need quite a bit more than what we’re talking about here, but this is a good start. We’re really happy that the housing department is putting this application in and that the City Council agreed to fund it.”
Rachel VanderVeen, the assistant director of the Housing Department of San José, concluded the meeting and said the department wants to put in the best application that it can.
“We want to bring this money to San Jose,” VanderVeen said. “The more support and thoughtfulness that we can do in this process, the better application we’ll have.”