Grand Forks’ next consolidated HUD plan to be broader than previous plans

Dec. 22—GRAND FORKS — The latest version of the consolidated plan the city will submit to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development likely will be broader than ever.

That’s because the city probably will see less funding allocation than it has, and the relationship between the city and HUD will be changing as the city moves further from the Flood of 1997. After the Flood, over $100 million in funds for community development came into Grand Forks and radically changed how the city was involved with initiatives for housing and economic development.

“The effect of that funding has certainly trickled over the last 20-plus years,” Grand Forks Community Development Manager Collin Hanson said. “We have solidly moved from recovery to an era of growth.”

The strategic plan is updated every five years and creates a

primer for housing, community development and support service needs in

the Grand Forks community. It typically gives a broad overview of housing data, community input and ideas for how the community plans to use the funds.

While including housing data, it is not a comprehensive housing study. Regionally, the city is supporting a housing study — conducted by

Red River Community Housing Development

— looking broadly at northeast North Dakota. The city hasn’t completed its own comprehensive housing study in several years. The city has discussed creating an updated housing study and, according to Community Development and Planning Director Ryan Brooks, has pursued code changes that a study would likely identify.

According to the needs assessment overview done by Root Policy Research, the consultants being used to create and eventually submit the plan, renter cost burden has generally increased, especially for those earning between $20,000 and $50,000. Grand Forks also typically has higher rates of renter cost burden across incomes compared to similar cities across North Dakota.

In Grand Forks, HUD funds aren’t just allocated strictly for housing projects, but also housing-adjacent projects — such as supporting organizations like Spectra Health and Northlands Rescue Mission. Through the city’s Community Development Block Grant program, organizations can apply for capital improvement funding grants. The city also has a community service grant program, funded by sales tax revenue, and organizations can apply for operational grants through the city.

There are other ways that the city could allocate those HUD funds. While typically it gives it via a competitive grant pool, the city also can directly allocate funds like

it did in 2023 for the Grand Forks Senior Center expansion.

The city in the last several years required projects to be shovel-ready so it can meet HUD’s timely expenditure requirement. Due to the city’s sale of the Corporate Center, built after the flood using HUD dollars, the city got

back those dollars and had an influx of money.

That influx, combined with the pandemic, led to the city missing the timely expenditure requirement. Missing that repeatedly can mean forfeiting HUD funds in the future.

“Whereas our strategic plan in the past may have been more specific in terms of what we want to accomplish because we have so little funding, we’re not exactly sure how much of an impact we can have,” Hanson said. “We’re expecting (this plan) to be a little bit more broad.”

Hanson said that keeping the plan broad also will help the city tackle multi-pronged housing issues in Grand Forks.

“We’re not just short on single-family homes and we’re not just short on four-plexes. We could use housing of any type,” Hanson said. “We want this strategic plan, as much as it’s a tool for us to understand our needs, to hopefully see the broader community.”

The plan will likely be submitted sometime in late summer, with the Grand Forks City Council reviewing the plan in the spring.

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