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CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Charleston County has just released its 2022 Action Plan, outlining the various projects it hopes to fund to improve communities and meet housing and community development needs. Now the community has an opportunity to help collaborate on the proposal.
The plan lays out how the county intends to use resources from the U.S. Department of Urban Development, or HUD. The projects the county plans to fund with this money are all based on priorities that were previously detailed in its consolidated plan, according to Program Administrator Chelsea Diedrich.
Charleston County is receiving about $2.5 million dollars of HUD funds, she says, which will be used for mainly low-to-moderate-income families.
There is a major focus on affordable housing and a lot of the money is set to go toward projects that contribute to that, including building new affordable housing units, rehabilitating existing units into affordable housing, emergency repairs, and more, Diedrich says.
The County is also allocating money to help establish well and septic connections for people, as well as repair old systems.
But beyond affordable housing, Charleston County hopes to use these HUD funds to achieve a variety of goals, according to Diedrich.
“[There’s a] very wide range of things we’re hoping to help out with this year,” she says. “We are also putting money toward public service projects, as well as shelter operations. Some of the public service projects we hope to fund include legal and financial services for people facing eviction, as well as some health-and-wellness-related services that would include prescription assistance. We also have some youth programs, one of which is a youth summer reading program.”
Documents from Charleston County show with previous HUD funding, the County has met numerous objectives, including sheltering 133 people experiencing homelessness, rehabilitating four vacant units into affordable housing and assisting more than 2,000 people through public service projects.
The deadline to share feedback on the 2022 Action Plan with Charleston County is May 5.
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