2018 Annual Community Assessment Report

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. 3 • the Boys and Girls Club(gym and paving). The County's Consolidated Plan describes the following four priority concerns that will be addressed: housing and special needs housing,homelessness,community development, and fair housing. HUD notes that during PY18, the County accomplished the following program objectives: • rehabilitated homes to address health and safety issues: • provided housing through its TBRA program; • conducted a total of 7 Fair Housing training/seminar sessions for property managers,homeless programs and for the general public; • launched, with the other state government entities, the Affordable Housing Study for the upcoming 2020-2024 Consolidated Plan. CDBG-DR The County's CAPER did not include a discussion of its recent lava flow disaster or the funds it anticipates from the CDBG-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR)program. Although not yet awarded, much debate occurred within HUD on whether a CDBG-DR award should be granted to the County. HUD's normal practice is to award CDBG-DR funds to State entities and allow the State to coordinate with the disaster-affected communities regarding implementation of a CDBG-DR program. In assessing the Hawaii county disaster and with assurances by the County that its Office of Housing and Community Development(011CD), the agency who administers the County's annual/regular CDBG funds and has HUD program capacity,would administer a CDBG-DR award, the local HUD Office recommended to HUD senior management that a CDBG-DR award should be awarded directly to the County versus awarding the funds to the State of Hawaii. in addition, Hawaii Congressional Leadership and the State of Hawaii made the same recommendations. However, as the County continued disaster recovery planning efforts, HUD became aware that the OHDC program staff was rarely involved in the recovery planning and CDBG-DR discussions. Follow-up with the OHDC confirmed that OHCD program staff was not actively involved with CDBG-DR planning and that essentially the County misrepresented the involvement of OHCD as the CDBG-DR Administrator. The County's misrepresentation, in order to gain a favorable recommendation for a CDBG-DR award, raises significant questions about the integrity of the County. Of concern is that this is the second time in approximately three years that the County has either mispresented a situation or identified a regulatory loophole to allow misleading information to influence program decisions. The first involved HUD's environmental review process on a major housing development and the second involves the County's current efforts to secure CDBG-DR funding directly to the County.