The Observation Deck

US Census estimates continue to show population loss in Lakewood. If the trend continues, we may very well dip below the 50,000 residents required to qualify for Federal Community Development Block Grant monies which provide millions in funding per year for the city.

Here is the link. Use drop down box to see Lakewood population figures since 2010:


https://www.cleveland.com/datacentral/i ... ds_po.html

Currently, we are only slightly above the 50,000. This will impact city finances.

Bridget Conant wrote:If the trend continues, we may very well dip below the 50,000 residents required to qualify for Federal Community Development Block Grant monies which provide millions in funding per year for the city.

The 50,000 number is what’s required to automatically qualify. Cleveland Heights and Euclid, for example, fell below the 50,000 mark years ago and I believe still receive their full share of CDBG funds.

Also worth noting Lakewood received a significant increase in CDBG funding this year over last year, despite a slight downtick in population.

Nope. You fall below 50,000 and you have to apply for state CDBG funds which are very competitive and cannot fund all requests.

I’d say it’s a serious issue. Read carefully.

Not only are there more requests for funding than there are monies, they look more closely at things like the poverty rate in the community in determining who gets the grants.

So basically, you have to admit you have high levels of poverty. Wonder how that will play with the current adminstration’s narrative?

https://www.hud.gov/sites/documents/19565_CDBG.PDF

Dan OMalley wrote:

Bridget Conant wrote:If the trend continues, we may very well dip below the 50,000 residents required to qualify for Federal Community Development Block Grant monies which provide millions in funding per year for the city.

The 50,000 number is what’s required to automatically qualify. Cleveland Heights and Euclid, for example, fell below the 50,000 mark years ago and I believe still receive their full share of CDBG funds.

Also worth noting Lakewood received a significant increase in CDBG funding this year over last year, despite a slight downtick in population.

Let's also keep in mind that the City of Lakewood failed to qualify for the special investment tax treatment as an Opportunity Zone under the newly-enacted federal tax laws as implemented by the U.S. Department of Treasury.

HERE IS THE TREND LINE

https://www.google.com/search?q=lakewoo ... e&ie=UTF-8

This interesting and dynamic graph (move your cursor along trend line to see population by year) shows that the population trend for Lakewood is on a slow, long-term decline.

From this trend line, the inference is that the population of Lakewood will be below 50,000 at the time of the 2020 U.S. Census.

Does the city administration have any plan to stem this decline? Should the city administration have a plan to stem this decline? Or is this simply inevitable?

HERE IS THE TREND LINE FOR ROCKY RIVER

https://www.google.com/search?ei=2LkRW4 ... UZRLAB1v-Q

HERE IS THE TREND LINE FOR AVON

https://www.google.com/search?ei=6LoRW- ... J5BPbxrfWY

More On The Lakewood Population Decline Trend Line

Yes, it is a slow, long-term trend:

Population 1970: 70,173

Population 1980: 61,963

Population 1990: 59,590

Population 2000: 56,500

Population 2010: 52,039

Population 2015: 50,621

Population 2016: 50,500

Population 2017: 50,249

At this rate, the City of Lakewood should arrive at a population number below 50,000 before the next census.

If I've been aware of this for quite awhile, City Hall must have been aware of it for longer. Aside from planning posh housing units that may or may not be ready by the 2020 census, and that may or may not be enough to make a difference, I don't see any kind of plan to head off this problem. Perhaps Lakewood will be able to get the money anyway as Dan O'Malley said (if I understood him correctly), and perhaps Lakewood doesn't need the money. But it seems like just another thing I don't get about the way this administration thinks. I haven't heard any concern about this issue.

Dan Alaimo wrote:If I've been aware of this for quite awhile, City Hall must have been aware of it for longer. Aside from planning posh housing units that may or may not be ready by the 2020 census, and that may or may not be enough to make a difference, I don't see any kind of plan to head off this problem. Perhaps Lakewood will be able to get the money anyway as Dan O'Malley said (if I understood him correctly), and perhaps Lakewood doesn't need the money. But it seems like just another thing I don't get about the way this administration thinks. I haven't heard any concern about this issue.

Well they weren’t worried about the millions in income tax revenue they were losing due to the loss of the hospital jobs. As I recall, Jennifer Pae posted here repeatedly that the city would be just fine without that money.

They must be thinking the same thing here.

So taxpayers, just remember, they don’t really need additional monies! All is fine!

Bridget Conant wrote:Well they weren’t worried about the millions in income tax revenue they were losing due to the loss of the hospital jobs. As I recall, Jennifer Pae posted here repeatedly that the city would be just fine without that money.

They must be thinking the same thing here.

So taxpayers, just remember, they don’t really need additional monies! All is fine!

Bridget

Short memory, they didn't care about the population numbers as they first tried to rid the city of 1,500 residents for a "multi-use strip mall" at the end of Detroit Avenue. Then they never cared about population numbers as they floated and pushed the idea of turning doubles into singles. Then suddenly they realized they could use CDBG money to pay themselves and underwrite their dream programs based around parties and status, then they went on the search desperate to count every human or pet with a human type name in the city.

The story gets worse but underlines their failures to understand the city at every level. Population falling, student enrollment down 550 student this year, even lower next year.

The handful of "movers and shakers" aka small underwhelming thinkers of Lakewood driving the city into the ground.

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I hope everyone would agree how critical this funding is to Lakewood, and to the low- and middle-income residents it aims to serve.

We should also bear in mind that the Trump administration has designs on eliminating the CDBG program altogether: https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/ ... 378871001/

Dan OMalley wrote:I hope everyone would agree how critical this funding is to Lakewood, and to the low- and middle-income residents it aims to serve.

We should also bear in mind that the Trump administration has designs on eliminating the CDBG program altogether: https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/ ... 378871001/

I’m no fan of Trump, but posting a year old article to induce panic and deflect from the issue at hand is rather ridiculous. In fact, the Omnibus spending bill passed in March 2018 and signed by Trump INCREASED CDBG funding by 235 million dollars.

https://www.novoco.com/notes-from-novog ... nding-bill

Bridget Conant wrote:

Dan OMalley wrote:I hope everyone would agree how critical this funding is to Lakewood, and to the low- and middle-income residents it aims to serve.

We should also bear in mind that the Trump administration has designs on eliminating the CDBG program altogether: https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/ ... 378871001/

I’m no fan of Trump, but posting a year old article to induce panic and deflect from the issue at hand is rather ridiculous. In fact, the Omnibus spending bill passed in March 2018 and signed by Trump INCREASED CDBG funding by 235 million dollars.

https://www.novoco.com/notes-from-novog ... nding-bill

Here’s a more recent one for you, regarding the FY2019 budget: https://www.npr.org/2018/02/13/58525569 ... uts-to-hud

“[The budget] eliminates the Community Development Block Grant which local governments can use at their discretion to address a variety of community and infrastructure needs.”

Not sure how this is deflecting - seems quite on point. In any event I agree that we should strive to remain an entitlement community and that CDBG funding is critical.

We are talking a difference of two thousand people here. Jim even gave us the number of those that are children, 500 or so. So what are the housing units that they used to live in being used for now? They didn't disappear so an effort to renovate and populate those units would be beneficial, plus the new units under construction. If not for the Trump Administration, we could be doing more with refugees and they would count in the population census.