Remarks about Chattanooga plan to improve service, housing due Tuesday

photo Beverly Johnson, Chattanooga's Neighborhood Services administrator

TO PARTICIPATEThe Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report is available at Neighborhood Services and Community Development Office at 101 E. 11th St. on the second floor of City Hall. The report will be available from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays until Tuesday. A copy of the executive summary is available on Chattanooga's website, www.chattanooga.gov. Written comments will be accepted until Tuesday.

The deadline is looming for Chattanooga residents to submit comments on how well the city has done to improve public service and housing.

Comments on the city's Consolidated Annual Performance Evaluation Report for 2009-10 will be accepted until Tuesday.

"The report doesn't change [because of the written comments]," said Beverly Johnson, the city's Neighborhood Services administrator. "We just include the comments and send them to HUD."

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reviews the reports and comments, then determines whether to approve it. HUD usually responds within 60 days, Johnson said.

Along with the report on improvements from 2009-2010, the city also is giving HUD its five-year consolidated plan. That includes the rehabilitation of 400 substandard low-income, owner-occupied homes with low- to no-interest loans, providing 1,000 homeless households with permanent, stable housing and helping 250 first-time low- to moderate-income home buyers with mortgage financing.

Chattanooga has been submitting the Consolidated Annual Performance Evaluation Report for at least 25 years, Johnson said. The report is required because the city receives HUD funding.

With funding from the city's HomeAgain program, the Orchard Knob Development Corp. and the city's Neighborhood Services and Community Development Department helped create 17 affordable rental units in fiscal year 2009-10, the annual report states.

More than 290 Chattanooga homes were rehabilitated by organizations including World Changers, Community Impact Fund, Chattanooga Human Services and Chattanooga Public Works, according to the report.

And about $69,200 from HUD's HOME program and federal community development block grants helped with lead removal, according to the report.

The city's efforts to address housing needs combine with goals set by the Chattanooga Homeless Coalition to address homelessness in the city, said Mary Simons, the coalition's executive director.

"In the last several years, their HomeAgain program has allocated over $2 million in housing development for people who are homeless or near-homeless," Simons said. "The goals in the consolidated plan have been consistent with the goals in our planning at the Homeless Coalition."

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