The Clovis City Council authorized the submission of an amended application at a March 30 special meeting to receive funding under the federal HOME Investment Partnership Program to assist those impacted by the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.
For the first time in Clovis history, the meeting was made available to attend online via WebEx, allowing anyone to attend the meeting via laptop or smartphone.
The HOME program grants federal assistance to cities and counties to create and retain affordable housing. Most assistance comes in the form of low-interest loans for the purpose of housing rehabilitation, new construction and acquisition of single-family and multifamily projects.
All housing projects funded by the program must benefit lower income renters or owners.
City of Clovis Economic Development Director Andy Haussler said the program would assist those who have lost their jobs or suffered business losses because of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.
“As we are going through this crisis, we are seeing enormous economic fallout and we are seeing a lot of people lose their work that are lower income,” Haussler said.
The city has applied for HOME funds in the past to assist families who purchase their first home.
Haussler said the amended application would possibly be used to secure funds to provide voucher assistance to low income families.
“There are quite a few different categories you can use HOME funds for,” Haussler told the council before the vote was cast. “One of the programs you can run with that is tenant-based rental assistance. That provides voucher style assistance to families that are low income, make 80 percent of median household income, and would help them afford a home.”
“We are not sure if this will be an appropriate use of this money relative to the requirements that the HOME program has, but we would like to begin exploring that. Tonight we are asking you to amend an application to allow that use to be considered and a new contract will be issued to the city for the use of these funds.”
Haussler said the city will assess community economic needs over the next few months to determine the proper steps to proceed with the contract.
The council unanimously passed the authorization of the application.
Mayor Drew Bessinger said, “I think this is a generous thing for us to do for our citizens, it is the right thing to do.”
The city also reaffirmed that it would follow the state’s order to shelter in place until further notice.
City Manager Luke Serpa acknowledged the order’s “crippling” effect on the economy, but said the measures are necessary to prevent the deaths of potentially hundreds in Clovis.
“When you look at the numbers that came out today… If we do everything perfectly, there are going to be 100,000 to 200,000 deaths in America. If you extrapolate that out, that is 36 to 72 people in Clovis,” Serpa said. “The modeling says that if we didn’t have these measures, we would have 1.6 to 2.2 million dead in the nation. That is 582 to 800 people in Clovis.”
Serpa said it is still premature to begin planning when the city will be able to reopen the local economy.
“Right now there are so many different scenarios that it would be impossible for us to try to guess and have a plan in place for everyone,” Serpa said. “But as we start to get there, I think we will start to see some telegraphing coming out of (the state) and we will react and quickly adapt to whatever the state comes up with… we will develop a plan for a logical and safe way to come out of this.”