The City Council will decide at its next meeting how to divvy up thousands of dollars in federal government money intended to help provide services and housing for moderate-to-lower income individuals.

The council meets Mon., May 4 at 6:30 p.m. inside council chambers, 2929 Tapo Canyon Road, Simi Valley.

A public hearing will precede the council's final decision on how it will spend an estimated $729,863 in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) money from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

The CDBG program provides money to cities each year to boost affordable housing, provide services to low and moderateincome individuals and create jobs through the expansion of businesses. It is primarily restricted to brick-and-mortar projects, but a portion of the money can also go to nonprofits who apply with specific requests.

In order to get assistance in making the decisions, the council in 2006 created a five-person advisory committee whose job it was to essentially make the difficult decisions for them.

After reviewing applications from nonprofits and from the city, committee members—who are appointed by the council—rank the applications on a point system to determine how much money each should receive.

Those results are compiled into a draft action plan, which is made available to the public before being passed on to the council as a recommendation (see info box at top right).

The fiscal year 2009-10 plan is available for public review at the city clerk's office; the Ventura County Library, 2969 Tapo Canyon Road; and the Development Services Building, 3855-A Alamo Street.

City Manager Mike Sedell said the council could tweak the allocations but that it has largely followed the committee's suggestions in the past.

Of the $729,863 the city is expected to receive from HUD, 15 percent must go to public service projects and 65 percent must go to housing and community development projects. The remaining 20 percent of the entitlement is for planning and administration of the CDBG program.

The city's minor street rehabilitation program falls under the category of housing and community development. The project includes repaving streets and reconstructing curbs/gutters, sidewalks and cross gutters in low- and moderate-income areas.

According to a staff report, 8,079 Simi residents would benefit from the project and, of those, 3,704 are considered low- or moderate- income individuals.

Committee member Wayne Evans, from Neighborhood Council No. 4, said projects geared directly at helping the homeless or needy are more important to him than resurfacing a bumpy road.

"It's real hard for me to equate concrete and asphalt to human life, someone eating or someone having a place to stay," Evans said at a meeting of the advisory board in March.

Sedell, on the other hand, said that the city must strike a balance between public service and public works.

"Having streets that are clean, neat, paved and well-kept . . . is a vital part of maintaining a neighborhood," he said.

Simi has seen its CDBG allocation decrease year after year, so it's no surprise that this year's piece of the pie is expected to be the smallest in recent memory.

"Just like anything else, the CDBG funds are derived from the federal budget, and as they feel free to slash the federal budget, they typically slash this one too," senior planner Shannon Nash said.

This year the committee allocated $355,065 to the roads and rehabilitation program.

Because this amount does not even cover half of the project's goals, city staff will have to prioritize which streets have the most need, Sedell said.

On the other hand, the Samaritan Center and Many Mansions, two competing nonprofits in the same category, were recommended full funding, though their payouts were modest in comparison: $37,118 and $51,758, respectively.

The Samaritan Center, a morning drop-in facility for Simi's homeless, plans to use the money to replace seven old refrigerators with two Energy Star commercial refrigerators and two commercial freezers in order to store the 60,000 pounds of food donated each month.

Many Mansions, which provides permanent housing and support services to people with mental illness who might otherwise be homeless, plans to use its allocation to make security and safety improvements to its two Simi housing facilities.

The committee had the most difficulty deciding how much to give the 12 public service programs jockeying for funds. With $196,112 in funding requests and only $104,248 to give, the committee members were feeling the burden of their position.

"Last year we had a dollar; this year we have 37 cents," Chamber of Commerce board member Michael McCaffrey said. "So we've got to stretch those 37 cents somehow."

Though the county's Long Term Care Services Ombudsman program ranked No. 1 and placed many points higher than the other nonprofit programs, it still did not receive its full funding request of $20,000. Instead, it was granted $15,000.

Another request by the Samaritan Center ranked second and received $36,345 to continue offering case management to homeless individuals and coordinating the PADS winter shelter program. The center had asked for $48,460.

"I am pleased," said Betty Eskey, executive director of the center. "We've never gotten 100 percent for that program, so we didn't expect 100 percent. We're happy with the 75 percent that we received."

In order to have more money to spread around, the committee eliminated the four lowestranking nonprofits from the list: Area Agency on Aging, Community Action of Ventura County, The Wellness Community and Ventura County Human Service Agency's RAIN Transitional Living Center.

"We have a lot of really good nonprofits, and the nonprofits that were represented up there are all great contributors to the community," said Sandra Thompson, coordinator for the city's Task Force on Homelessness, after the meeting. "It's hard to see we don't have enough funds to help."