St. Cloud Announces Recipients of the Community Development Block Grants

(KNSI) — St. Cloud is awarding more than $669,000 in federal funding to several local organizations.

The city council approved the planning commission’s recommendations for this year’s Community Development Block Grants. Community Development Director Matt Glaesman has the tough task of helping to distribute the money. “This year, we had 17 applications, and really only funding for about half of those. So it really comes down to needs, which are defined by that five-year plan. We have an objective for five years to address a number of goals.”

Glaesman told KNSI News they tried to stretch their funds to help as many programs as possible. “We did try to spread it a little bit thinner across all of the different goals that we have. For example, we really haven’t used the funds for economic development purposes before. And that was one of the projects that was awarded this year. So were a lot of homelessness projects. Some others looked at affordable housing. That’s always been in the plan every year.”

The projects getting funding include:

St. Cloud HRA – Single Family Rehab $195,000
East Side Blight & Clearance Program $150,000
Place of Hope Building Sprinkler & Systems Upgrade $100,000
Central MN Sexual Assault Center Building Improvements $33,000
Anna Marie’s Alliance Transitional House Improvements $30,000
Pathways 4 Youth Building Improvements $15,000
St. Cloud Area School District 742’s Local Education and Activities Foundation’s Homeless Student Services Project $12,000
St. Cloud Area Crisis Nursery Emergency Childcare $10,000
Tri-CAP – Homeless Connect $5,000
St. Cloud Program Administration costs $119,252

Homeless Helping Homeless had applied for $140,000 for security and to pay for staff at Lincoln Center but was denied. The shelter has been the subject of numerous complaints since it opened in 2021.

The money comes from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and is administered by the city.

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