Community Investment: Los Angeles's Use of a Community Development Block Grant Exemption.

摘要

Under the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program, entitlement communities also called grantees receive funds that they can spend to support specific community development activities, such as rehabilitating housing, improving public facilities, and providing public services. Most grantees are prohibited by statute from spending more than 15 percent of their CDBG funding on public service activities, such as child care, health care, and crime prevention. However, in the aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles civil unrest, the Congress gave an exemption from this statutory cap to two grantees the City of Los Angeles and the County of Los Angeles allowing them to spend up to 25 percent of their funds on public services. In December 2001, the exemption was extended through 2003 this was the most recent in a series of extensions. Because of concerns about these two grantees' efforts to transition to the statutory levels for public service spending, you asked us to report on how the city and county (1) used their CDBG funding to provide public services during the exemption period and (2) plan to transition from their current levels of public service spending to levels that meet the statutory 15 percent cap.