BY JOHN SNYDER
OF PASCACK PRESS
PASCACK VALLEY, N.J.––A requested $50,000 is in hand for a handicapped accessible ramp at the Township of Washington’s Memorial Field.
A much needed $32,000 went to Westwood-based Meals on Wheels North Jersey, formerly Pascack Valley Meals on Wheels.
And Park Ridge was due for $42,125 for a handicapped accessible ramp at Borough Hall.
And there’s more.
Within an overall $600,000 in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds secured by municipalities and nonprofits from Montvale to Tenafly, the Pascack Valley recently received $117,731 in allocations for the program’s 2016-2017 grant cycle.
Six million dollars was allocated this grant cycle in the 70 municipalities of Bergen County.
Down to the dollar, recipients in CDBG’s Pascack Valley, Northern Valley and Southeast regions cleared a combined $599,648 in this grant cycle.
(Technically more: we aren’t accounting for towns too far removed from our family of newspapers’ circulation area, such as Fairview and Fort Lee.)
The funds support such community development activities as public infrastructure improvements, housing activities, economic development, job training programs and public service.
Other local recipients this year are the boroughs of Hillsdale, Park Ridge, River Vale, and Montvale and the Township of Washington, which received $3,530 each for senior citizen activities.
Park Ridge got $3,530 for a handicapped accessible ramp at Borough Hall.
The money, which came from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, is allocated under a renewable three-year agreement of HUD, Bergen County, and county’s 70 municipalities.
Towns appoint representatives to their regional committees annually, and these leaders divvy up available funds. Nonprofits can apply for funds but their leaders don’t have a seat at the table.
The CDBG’s Pascack Valley Region consists of Emerson, Hillsdale, Montvale, Old Tappan, Oradell, Park Ridge, River Vale, the Township of Washington, Westwood and Woodcliff Lake.
The chairs of the program’s six regional committees comprise the Bergen Countywide Region, which takes up countywide needs seeking their own allocations.
According to Robert G. Esposito, director of the Bergen County Division of Community Development, the program is meant to get down to the grass roots and empower communities.
“It provides an opportunity for the county and towns to partner on lots of interesting things to improve the quality of life in Bergen County,” he told the Pascack Press in a telephone interview.
According to Esposito, part of the formula for deciding how much an applicant receives is based on income demographics that HUD supplies.
A notable exception to the income rule: allocations targeting handicapped accessibility are not considered by income, Esposito said.
This year’s allocations, expected from HUD months ago “are unprecedented in their lateness,” Esposito said.
He explained that allocations for 2017-2018 are standing by for HUD approval and should be announced in October.
Struggling to meet the need
Meals on Wheels North Jersey’s executive director, Jeanne Martin, told the Pascack Press that her organization’s 2016-2017 allocation of $32,000—actually, four allocations of $8,000 as the organization applied in the four CDBG regions it serves—represents 10 percent of its annual budget.
The organization’s volunteers deliver a nutritious hot meal, a sandwich, fruit, juice, milk and dessert to 220 low-income seniors in their homes who pay $7.35 a day to eat.
The organization also combats the problem of senior isolation and provides wellness checks.
“We try very hard not to raise our rates even as our costs are going up. The people we serve really are struggling because it is so expensive here. For those with health issues, the decision can come down to buying medicine or food,” Martin said.
Helping where it counts
The Township of Washington’s allocation of $50,000 might even net the county a refund.
According to Mayor Janet Sobkowicz, the project to pave handicapped or elderly visitors’ way from Memorial Park’s fieldhouse to its field—part of a larger project to improve the prominent town feature—seems on track to cost less than the estimate.
She told the Pascack Press that indications were that the work is hewing closer to $36,000, and that there was a process to return unused CDBG funds.
“The CDBG really helps us to help people, whether it’s people who are older or have problems walking, problems with their knees or some other thing. It gives us the ability to help them,” she said.
“If we can do it for less than the estimate, that’s fine. That’s good too,” she said.