Lakewood City News 03.02.09

[Jim O'Bryan]

MAYOR FITZGERALD TO DELIVER ANNUAL STATE OF CITY ADDRESS

Lakewood Mayor Edward FitzGerald will present the 2009 State of the City address on Tuesday, March 3, 2009 at 7:00 PM at the Beck Center Armory (behind Beck Center), 1437 Wayne Avenue. This public is welcome to attend.

Mayor FitzGerald is serving his first term as Mayor of the City of Lakewood. His State of City Address will focus of the City's successes and achievements during 2008 and the opportunities and challenges in the year 2009 and beyond.

This event is sponsored by the Lakewood Chamber of Commerce, LakewoodAlive, Lakewood Observer, Kiwanis Club of Lakewood and Lakewood/Rocky River Rotary Club


LAKEWOOD AWARDED ADDITIONAL $1.4 MILLION AS PART OF
ECONOMIC STIMULUS PACKAGE

The City of Lakewood continues to push for its fair share of federal dollars from the 2009 Recovery Act. Lakewood has been recently awarded over $1.4 million from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). This is in addition to the approximately $1.1 million already awarded from the Federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) for property acquisition.

The City of Lakewood will receive $589,901 in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding and $902,439 in Homelessness Prevention money, as part of the economic stimulus package. 

The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program enables local governments to undertake a wide range of activities intended to create suitable living environments, provide decent affordable housing and create economic opportunities, primarily for persons of low and moderate income. One priority of this additional funding is to maximize job creation and economic development. While HUD has not released the specific requirements for spending this money, the additional CDBG money will most likely be spent on public infrastructure or economic development projects. 

Lakewood will also receive $902,439 as part of the Homelessness Prevention Fund. The intention of this fund is to provide financial assistance and services to prevent individuals and families from becoming homeless and help those who are experiencing homelessness to be quickly re-housed and stabilized.  The funds under this program are intended to target individuals and families who would be homeless but for this assistance. The funds will provide for a variety of assistance, including: short-term or medium-term rental assistance and housing relocation and stabilization services, including such activities as mediation, credit counseling, security or utility deposits, utility payments, moving cost assistance, and case management.

"The City of Lakewood will continue to aggressively pursue any federal dollars we are entitled to as part of the economic stimulus package," stated Mayor Ed FitzGerald. "We want to make sure that Lakewood gets its fair share of these federal funds."




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