The Village of Brookfield is hoping to address chronic property maintenance issues by creating a program where people who say they can’t afford to pay for repairs can get grants to do so.
Officials are hopeful that the seed money for Brookfield Minor Home Repair Assistance will come from a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG). CDBG funds are distributed annually by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to municipalities throughout the United States.
Cook County distributes the federal funds to local communities, which apply for funds for projects that will benefit low-income residents and the handicapped. In the recent past, for example, Brookfield has used CDBG funds to make handicapped-accessible improvements to the Brookfield Public Library and construct a handicapped-accessible bathroom facility at Jaycee/Ehlert Park.
This year, Brookfield will seek $25,000 that can be used to help those on low and fixed incomes in Brookfield pay for home repairs that in the past have simply gone unaddressed despite repeated blight notices from the village.
According to a memo to village trustees distributed at the Jan. 14 village board meeting, last year Brookfield wrote blight citations on 1,100 properties. At least 40 of those property owners told staff they couldn’t afford to make the minor repairs, which ranged from peeling paint to missing window panes to broken gutters.
“We’ve written literally hundreds of hang tags in the past 18 months for property maintenance issues,” said Assistant Village Manager Keith Sbiral, who also is head of the village’s Building and Planning Department.
“We have 30-plus situations on adjudication call, and some folks have had issues with the cost of repairs.”
Sbiral said he talked with a couple of suburban agencies such as a the Community and Economic Development Association of Cook County (CEDA) and the West Suburban Neighborhood Preservation Agency to see whether those homeowners might be able to get financial assistance through them. However, those agencies don’t offer minor home repair assistance, Sbiral said.
Since CBDG funds must be used to assist in projects that will benefit low-income residents, Brookfield has few opportunities to tap into those funds. However, Sbiral said, based on census data, many of the Brookfield homeowners who need to make the home repairs may be classified by HUD as low-income.
“It’s aimed at folks who income-qualify,” Sbiral said. “Compared with other projects [CDGB funds can address] it’s pretty small, but for us to be able to do this is huge.”
If the village gets the $25,000 it is seeking from Cook County, Sbiral said that Brookfield would seek applications for 25 separate $1,000 grants to do minor exterior home repairs and bring homes up to code.
“I think it’s a very creative idea,” said Village President Michael Garvey. “If we can eventually help 25 homeowners meet basic code requirements, that would be a great use of the money.”
While homeowners would have to fill out an application for the grants, Sbiral said that they would likely be notified by building inspectors that such grants were available.
All of the details have not yet been worked out, but Sbiral said that the village would probably seek to gather all 25 grants applications that have been approved and put the entire group up for competitive bid, just as the village would do for a street paving contract.
The work would then go to the lowest responsible bidder.
The village board will conduct a public hearing for its CDBG application at its Jan. 28 village board meeting. The application is due to Cook County on Feb. 22.
While the county doesn’t typically make decisions on CDBG applications until the fall, Sbiral said the village may be able to begin distributing grant money in 2008 for repairs.