About the Community & Neighborhood Development Program ||| Currently Funded Activities ||| Results ||| Proposal Qualifications and Process ||| Materials Available from Us ||| How To Contact Us

About the City of Madison
Community & Neighborhood
Development Program

Major Goals || City Partners || Community Partners
Community Development Strategies || Other Funding Sources

The purpose of the Community and Neighborhood Development Program is to help make Madison "a more viable urban community by providing decent housing and a suitable living environment and by expanding the economic opportunities for low and moderate income (LMI) persons".
("Low and moderate income persons" are defined as individuals or households whose annual income does not exceed 80% of the area median income.)

The program will work with non-profit community and neighborhood groups, and their associated business, resident, and neighborhood partners to plan, develop and invest in activities which contribute to the 2005-2009 objectives established by the CDBG Commission, Mayor and Common Council in consultation with Madison citizens.

The CDBG Commission has established four primary goals and nine outcome objectives for the use of funds to be administered by the CD Office in 2009 and 2010. These funds include three major Federal programs administered through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (Community Development Block Grant, HOME and Emergency Shelter Grant), several State-funded or administered programs (Division of Housing), and local City of Madison funds. The goals and objectives for this two-year period are derived from the CD Office's Community and Neighborhood Development Five-Year Plan and support other Department and Citywide strategic goals, objectives and allocation processes.

Major Goals

The four major goals identified by the Commission include:

• Affordable Housing. Maintain and expand the supply of safe, affordable housing through the community.

• Business Development. Help businesses grow in ways that create employment opportunities for lower income persons.

• Strengthening Madison's Neighborhoods. Expand opportunities that promote neighborhood cohesion, stability, and sustainable development.

• Access to Community Resources. Expand opportunities for low- and moderate-income persons to access self-help activities in friendly, safe, accessible, and well-maintained civil spaces.

Following the intent of its funding sources, the City has primarily funded activities which either directly serve low and moderate income persons (defined as those with income of 80% or less of Madison's SMSA median) or has funded activities which serve a neighborhood and which are located within the CDBG target areas (defined as those census tracts where 51% or more of the population meets the income guidelines). These include the Isthmus, the Near East Side, and the South Madison areas.

The City of Madison Community and Neighborhood Development Program is organized around a core of funding and program missions derived from a blend of the community development programs of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and local priorities and experience articulated through the Common Council and the Mayor of Madison. Madison is one of approximately 1,000 communities over 50,000 in population which administer a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program. These programs were established as block grants to local governments to foster national objectives while responding to local conditions and strengths. Hence, while the City shares some common attributes with other HUD-funded cities, it also builds on Madison's local experience to address a unique set of objectives, using Madison's community and neighborhood groups and businesses.

City Partners

The CD Office and CDBG Commission work closely with several other major City agencies to jointly plan, implement and evaluate the program's core activities. The CD Office is part of the Department of Planning and Community & Economic Development's Community Development Division, and works closely with these City agencies on these activities:

• Planning, to design and fund the Concentration Neighborhood program.

• Community and Economic Development, to coordinate development financing and the rehab loan programs to individual households.

• Office of Community Services, to strengthen neighborhood centers and related services.

• Building Inspection, to maintain the quality of Madison's housing and provide training to Madison landlords.

• Housing Operations, to coordinate activities related to the City's Public Housing and Section 8 programs.

• Department of Civil Rights, to coordinate fair housing and community reinvestment efforts.

Community Partners

The CD Office also works closely with several other major funders within the community to manage a community assessment process, coordinate a joint application process, and sponsor special projects or studies of mutual interest:

• United Way of Dane County, to coordinate funding related to human and social services, including the local Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funds.

• Community Shares of Wisconsin, to coordinate funding related to housing and community-building.

• Dane County Human Services Department, to coordinate funding related to human and social services, employment/training linkages, and homeless services.

• The City Office of Community Services (OCS), to align efforts within the City to work with non-profit community-based organizations toward strategic City and neighborhood objectives. This City agency has its own list of priority activities, including child day care, senior and youth services. OCS and the CD Office have differentiated domains; for instance, questions or proposals related to housing issues should be discussed with the CD Office, whereas questions or proposals related to senior services (except for housing and business development services) should be referred to OCS.

Additional local information is available through HUD-Milwaukee.

Community Development Strategies

The Madison CD program has designed its activities to provide a unique focus and modus operandi, compared to the other funding bodies ...

• The program funds activities for long-term impact upon Madison's neighborhoods and low and moderate income individuals. Many activities are designed to integrate lower income and higher income households rather than focus exclusively on very low income, based on the belief that all can contribute to the health of Madison's future.

• The program assists activities which often operate within a market or quasi-market environment, such as assisted housing, business development or neighborhood district revitalization, where the program participant shares the responsibility for the costs and the shape of the actual product or program.

• The program focuses upon activities which are "developmental" in nature and are either capitalized costs, or operating costs (related to community gardens, neighborhood centers or information resources). In some of our most effective activities, we have provided the agency with the assets and information to develop a service which in turn establishes a source of future revenue to the agency while serving a public benefit.

• The program provides funding and other assistance to non-profit agencies at the "wholesale" or systemwide level of operations, rather than manage itself programs which directly assist individual households, such as the CED Unit rehab loan program, the OCS tuition program or the Housing Operations Section 8 program.

The CD Office does not directly assist for-profits nor individuals, but works through community-based and neighborhood-based organizations which in turn assist those groups. The CD Office does not generally fund operating costs, unless they are part of a capital project or relate to community gardens, neighborhood centers, services to homeless populations, or the provision of information and access to housing and business resources.

Other Funding Sources

Several other funding bodies within the area also focus on capital costs. They include:

• the Dane County Executive Office, which administers the County CDBG program. If you are interested in housing or economic development outside of the City of Madison but within Dane County, contact the Executive Office.

• Forward Community Investments (formerly Dane Fund / Madison Area Community Revolving Fund), which provides loans to agencies for capital projects which generate sufficient income for repayment. FCI and the City CD Office sometimes use their resources within the same projects to share risks and, where needed, to ensure that the project is successful.

• Capital Campaign Committee, to assist agencies with coordination of their private fundraising efforts with businesses within Dane County. For appropriate projects, agencies sometimes use the CDBG funds as their initial "equity" in a project or to demonstrate public support in order to leverage private support in a later phase.

• Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority (WHEDA), the State-level agency which provides loans, grants or tax credits for capital projects involving affordable housing and business development.

The CD Office is very willing to work with non-profit agencies to access these other funders or to coordinate its own funding with that of these agencies.