Benson, MN-This past November Swift County RDA submitted a pre-application the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) for a Block Grant to rehabilitate housing and commercial properties in Swift County. On January 3rd Swift County received notification that DEED staff had evaluated their pre-application for potential funding, and the project was invited to submit a full application.
Full applications are due April 12, 2012 and Swift County was advised to make revisions to their project based on the highly competitive round of applicants. The Small Cities program received 77 pre-applications totaling over $42 million. 60 of those, representing $33.5 million were invited to submit full-application. The expected total funding pool of the state is only $14 million.
“We definitely have our work cut out for us,” said RDA Executive Director, Jennifer Frost. “But the state provided some specific recommendations on how to make our proposal more competitive. Those include having a smaller, more geographically refined target area, and to provide details about the community’s need for the proposed activity. The original proposal was submitted as a county-wide application, so this will mean some big changes.”
The RDA and HRA plan to meet with those communities that represent the highest level of interest from the original proposal in an attempt to refine the application. In the meantime, DEED is in the process of making modifications to the full application to better meet Housing and Urban Development expectations and state rules for the program, and plans to have the revised full application available mid-January.
For More Information:
Contact Vicki Syverson, Executive Director
Swift County Housing and Redevelopment Authority (HRA), 320-843-4676 or
Jennifer Frost, Executive Director
Swift County Rural Development Authority (RDA) 320-842-4769
Click here for