The request is for City Council to adopt Resolution No. 2024-08 which amends the City's Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Housing Assistance Plan.

As Council may recall, Resolution No. 2020-56 was adopted on September 15, 2020 and established City's CDBG Housing Assistance Plan (HAP) as it was a requisite under the City's Small City CDBG Program application. Since that time, the City's grant administration services firm, Guardian Community Resource Management, advised the City that its Housing Assistance Plan was cumbersome and restrictive for timely administration of the grant. The firm made necessary changes that were non-policy related and mostly related to process. In addition, the City requested two changes to the plan. The first relates to the eligibility to participate in the program.  In short, the change prohibits city employees, members of City Council, Citizens Advisory Task Force members and their families from eligibility to participate in the program.  The second change relates to homeowner's insurance.  The HAP requires that the property is insured at the time that the improvements have been completed.  The change requested was that homeowners, as a condition of program eligibility, have property insurance at the time of program application.  With that being said, there is a waiver to this requirement that property owners can apply for consideration under and which is subject to City Council approval but which shall not be unreasonably withheld. The revised document was then submitted to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (now known as Florida Commerce) for review and approval. The changes made are outlined in the redline version attached to to this agenda item. Staff was notified by Guardian Community Resource Management on April 3, 2024 that Florida Commerce approved the proposed changes. The newly appointed members of the Citizens Advisory Task Force met on June 3, 2024 to review the proposed changes and they were unanimously approved.