At Good Friday emergency meeting, Waltham Community Preservation Committee OK'd Mayor McCarthy's application to use $1M in CPA funds for rental assistance.
Virtual meeting started at 1 p.m. Over 90 minutes of discussion. Emails read from citizens listening in.
Mayor Jeannette McCarthy said there have been over 400 applications for assistance. @massmunicipal 2/
CPA funds can be used for historic preservation, open space & housing. Only $748K left in CPA funds Waltham has designated for housing so CPC also voted to move un-designated CPA funds into housing to come up with the million. 3/ @CPA_Coalition
Waltham no stranger to using local funds for assistance. City uses CDBG funds & nonprofit @watchcdc has used CPA for emergency assistance. City has already used $150K in general reserves for rental help & @watchcdc received $100K in CPA for #COVID19 assistance last month. 4/
Waltham Mayor Jeannette McCarthy said she's never seen anything like this & "we feel we have obligation to help people so they don't feel any more stress than what the pandemic has already caused them." @massmunicipal @CityofWaltham 5/
Attached to request was MHP's recently-released guidance on using local funds for rental assistance. Glad to see munis using our work to help make sure funds are used effectively & appropriately. https://bit.ly/2wyWc3c  @ShellyGogo @laura_shufelt @katylacy5 6/
One can argue pros & cons of using CPA funds intended to support perm housing, but statute permits this use & both Waltham & @watchcdc have moved quickly to bring relief to residents. 7/end
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