The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program supports community development through efforts that include housing rehabilitation, public services, and homeowner assistance. At the July 26th Washington County Board of Supervisors meeting, a deadline was extended for the program to allow one more application to be processed. The program in Washington County was supposed to help at least five families with home buyer assistance but will only manage to reach three families after this final application was processed.

Washington County Auditor Dan Widmer says that the results that Washington got from this program don’t line up with the results other counties have gotten. “When I was talking to my contact person in Cedar Rapids, and she was telling me that when they have had similar programs like this that they’ve had way more applicants than money.” Widmer also noted that this extension was to allow this one application to come in and not an overall extension of the program itself.

It is not determined yet whether or not this program or a similar program will be tried again in the coming months.