HOME funding program may be dropped

The Western Nevada Development District may stop administering some $600,000 in low-income housing funds to Carson City and nine surrounding jurisdictions after running into problems with the Housing and Urban Development program.

The district hasn't been paid to run the program since January, after the contract ended. The HOME Consortium board will meet today to discuss the decision.

"If we can't pay people to administer the program, we can't do it," said LeRoy Goodman, chairman of the HOME Consortium board. "Hopefully, we'll start getting some of this stuff straightened out."

If the district discontinued the program, the region would lose the funds, which would go elsewhere throughout the United States, Goodman said. The program serves low-income residents and organizations in Carson City, Douglas, Lyon, Storey, Churchill, Pershing, Mineral counties and the cities of Fallon, Lovelock and Fernley.

The program provides funding for people who need security deposits to move into apartments and many other projects. This year, the consortium began a program to allow jurisdictions to tear down unsafe housing and replace it with new, safe and sanitary units.

Lyon County is the lead county for the HUD program, but the development district does the paperwork and disperses the money as its administrator.

Carson City's Citizens for Affordable Homes Inc., receives support each year.

A new HUD administrator in Las Vegas interprets federal statues differently than previous administrators, and that has resulted in administrative costs being cut out, said Acting Director Bill Cadwallader. The district has tried to resolve the problem since October.

It costs about $60,000 a year to administer the funds, he said.

HUD officials said Monday they didn't understand the circumstances and why the district wasn't receiving administrative costs. But they will monitor what happens today.

"There have been no changes in the HUD rules," said HUD spokesman Larry Bush. "To the extent there are issues between Lyon County and the WNDD, these are issues that we will continue to take an interest in, and we will join in any way we can to be helpful. But those are not issues that come from a change in HUD policies."

Contact Jill Lufrano at jlufrano@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1217.