DATE: August 5, 2025
TO: Board of Supervisors
SUBMITTED BY: Steven E. White, Director
Department of Public Works and Planning
Sanja Bugay, Director
Department of Social Services
SUBJECT: 5-Year Consolidated Plan for Federal Fiscal Years 2025-29 and Annual Action Plan (Year 1, FY 2025-26) for Community Development Block Grant, HOME Investment Partnerships Grant, and Emergency Solutions Grant Programs
RECOMMENDED ACTION(S):
TITLE
1. Receive staff’s presentation and conduct public hearing to receive testimony on proposed County community development, housing, and homeless program activities that will be funded by Federal grants;
2. Approve and authorize the practice of offering and issuing Affordable Housing Development funds as a loan and/or a grant to both for-profit and non-profit developers, consistent with requirements of the funding source(s) used. Each individual project recommended for funding will be brought before the Board of Supervisors for approval;
3. Approve the 2025-29 Consolidated Plan and the Annual Action Plan (Year 1, FY 2025-26) in substantial form as that attached to this item, including use of Community Development Block Grant, HOME Investment Partnerships Grant, and Emergency Solutions Grants;
4. Authorize the Director of the Department of Public Works and Planning or designee to execute Standard Form 424 (Application for Federal Assistance), Form HUD-424-B (Assurances and Certifications), Certifications, and Entitlement Grant Agreements for the Community Development Block Grant and the HOME Investment Partnerships Grant; and
5. Authorize the Director of the Department of Social Services or designee to execute Standard Form 424 (Application for Federal Assistance), Form HUD-424-B (Assurances and Certifications), Certification, and Entitlement Grant Agreement for the Emergency Solutions Grant.
REPORT
There is no anticipated Net County Cost associated with the recommended actions. Approval and authorization of the third, fourth, and fifth recommended actions are necessary to continue the County’s participation in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), HOME Investment Partnerships Grant (HOME), and Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG) entitlement programs and permit staff from the Department of Public Works and Planning (PWP) and the Department of Social Services (DSS) to submit the required planning documents and applications for funds to HUD. The 5-year Consolidated Plan for Federal Fiscal Years 2025-29 includes the Year 1 Annual Action Plan for Fiscal Year (FY) 2025-26. The County’s Urban County Area project jurisdiction (PJ) for Program Year (PY) 2025-26 will consist of the unincorporated County areas and eight participating cities (Fowler, Kerman, Kingsburg, Mendota, Orange Cove, Reedley, Sanger, and Selma); however, services to homeless populations may be provided anywhere within the boundaries of the County. PWP staff are also seeking Board direction on funding methods for affordable housing development for the upcoming series of projects. If any material changes to the Consolidated Plan and the Annual Action Plan are required by HUD, the updated Plan will be brought back to your Board for ratification of those changes. This item is countywide.
ALTERNATIVE ACTION(S):
Your Board may approve the Consolidated Plan as proposed or make any changes consistent with Federal regulations governing the respective grant programs. Your Board may elect to maintain the current practice of only offering Affordable Housing Development funds as loans. Failure to conduct a public hearing and receive testimony and approve the third, fourth, and fifth recommended actions will prevent the County from submitting the plan by its statutory deadline and will jeopardize receipt of Federal FY 2025 CDBG, HOME, and ESG funds from HUD. Additionally, failure to approve the recommended actions may result in discontinuing necessary services including housing assistance, domestic violence services, and youth afterschool programming in the rural areas of the County including Reedley, Selma, Sanger, and Mendota.
FISCAL IMPACT:
There is no anticipated increase in Net County Cost associated with the recommended actions. However, in the event Federal funds for the HOME program are discontinued, the County is obligated by current Federal regulations and previously executed grant agreements to perform compliance monitoring activities for up to 20 years after the new construction or remodeling of HOME-funded housing units which may result in increased Net County Cost.
The 5-Year Consolidated Plan identifies planned categories of use for estimated grant allocations and conservatively estimated program income during the five-year cycle from CDBG ($24,278,000), HOME ($18,857,277), HOME-ARP ($4,938,653, no new grant funds), and ESG ($1,408,520). Any unprogrammed funds remaining at the end of the last five-year cycle are also reprogrammed into the Consolidated Plan.
Precision in predicting five years of grant funds is not required at the Consolidated Plan level. Instead, detailed funding plans using actual grant allocations are included in each Annual Action Plan (AAP). The 2025-26 AAP, contained within the Consolidated Plan, serves as the Year 1 planning document for the County of Fresno for the actual Federal FY 2025 new allocations (utilized July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026) of CDBG ($3,172,269), HOME ($1,162,934), and ESG ($281,704) funds. HUD released the allocation amounts on May 14, 2025. The Departments anticipate receiving the grant agreements after submitting the Consolidated Plan, AAP, and documents discussed in the third and fourth recommended actions, upon receiving HUD’s approval.
The Federal funds must be used on behalf of individuals and households earning at or below 80% of the County’s Area Median Income (AMI) for their household size, e.g. $75,100 for a family of four. Further details regarding past funds available, plan for forthcoming Year 1 funds, and funds anticipated in Years 2 through 5 are included in the attachment to this item. Sufficient appropriations commensurate with existing funds, conservatively estimated program income, and new Year 1 allocations are included in the respective FY 2025-26 Proposed Budgets for CDBG (PWP Org 7205), HOME (PWP Org 55122008), HOME-ARP (PWP Org 55122035), and ESG (DSS Org 5610).
The HOME program allows jurisdictions flexibility in offering HOME funds for affordable housing development as both loans and grants of HOME funds are permitted. The conversion of funding from a loan-based model to a grant-based model is anticipated to decrease the County's future revenues, specifically affecting HOME program income streams 20 or more years out.
DISCUSSION:
To ensure effective use of Federal funds, HUD requires jurisdictions receiving grant funds prepare a multi-year Consolidated Plan. The Consolidated Plan for Federal Program Years 2025-29 is a five-year planning document that describes the housing, community development, and homeless needs for the cities and communities in Fresno County's Urban County project jurisdiction, outlining how those needs will be addressed using the County's anticipated HUD grants. Creation of this comprehensive planning document involves conducting a needs analysis, soliciting public and stakeholder input, adopting concrete goals, and creating a long-term funding plan. Progress towards goals is reported annually. All activities within the County funded by HUD-including those awarded to other Departments (e.g., Public Health for childhood lead exposure remediation) or outside entities (e.g., Fresno-Madera Continuum of Care)-are reviewed for consistency with the County’s then-current Consolidated Plan, even if not already explicitly identified.
County staff began preparations for the 2025-29 Consolidated Plan in July 2024; this plan covers activities funded between July 1, 2025 and June 30, 2030. The collaborative effort involved PWP, which administers CDBG and HOME funds, and DSS, which administers ESG funds. The County Administrative Office also participated heavily in the preparation of this cycle’s plan to ensure alignment with countywide efforts to address homelessness, broadband access, and emergency preparedness.
Outreach efforts conducted prior to drafting of the Consolidated Plan include in-person, virtual, or ongoing consultations with 28 individual stakeholder entities, plus the Fresno-Madera Continuum of Care and the County’s Citizen’s Advisory Committee; 17 participants at a focus group session in Laton; 41 responses from Community Partners on housing, homelessness, and supportive services; 12 responses from builders and developers on construction/rehabilitation needs, costs, and obstacles; 22 responses from cities and service districts on needs and infrastructure priorities; and 271 responses from members of the public to a Community Survey on housing, homelessness, and infrastructure needs. The Community Survey was conducted in English and Spanish. Bilingual Community Development staff attended food pantry distributions to share the flyer with the community. The survey was also shared by the County’s Public Information Officer and in survey flyers dropped off at libraries and other locations. Responses to the Community Survey can be filtered to one or more zip codes or named communities upon request to the Community Development Division. Copies of all responses received are included with this item and on file with the Clerk.
The 5-Year Consolidated Plan contains an executive summary, identification of responsible entities, summaries of citizen participation efforts and consultations held with stakeholders, a needs assessment, a housing market analysis, and a strategic plan. As noted in the Fiscal Impact section above, the Year 1 AAP identifies expected resources, sets annual goals and objectives, lists planned projects, provides an affordable housing analysis, and includes documents to address program-specific requirements. The Year 1 AAP and documents described in recommended actions three and four are submitted concurrently with the Consolidated Plan.
Although HUD attempts to simplify some analysis by automatically including official data for each specific jurisdiction, its choice of dataset favors stability and reliability across long periods of time, often at the expense of reflecting actual market conditions faced by low-income populations. Notably, HUD’s prepopulated dataset for the 2025-29 Consolidated Plan is based on the Census’ American Community Survey years 2016-2020 and a special HUD subset of Census data, the Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy (CHAS) for years 2016-2020. Although the County may utilize alternate data sources in its analysis, HUD allocates funds to jurisdictions based on its own datasets.
In recognition of the current challenges facing County residents, staff have prepared recommended 5-year and 1-year allocation plans for CDBG, HOME, and ESG grant funds which prioritize residents’ current needs over historical funding approaches. Activities for HOME-ARP remain consistent with the plan approved by the Board on March 14, 2023. Highlights for the program plans are as follows: CDBG will be used for public facility and infrastructure enhancements, public services, housing rehabilitation, and program administration; HOME will be used for Tenant-Based Rental Assistance, rental housing rehabilitation, development of new single/multifamily housing, and program administration; and ESG will be used for rural-focused street outreach, overnight emergency shelter, rapid-rehousing, database expenses, and program administration. The recommended plan does not continue CDBG funding for commercial façade improvements due to lack of interest and limitations of the funding. Discontinuance of HOME funding for owner-occupied housing and downpayment assistance is also recommended, as regulatory requirements and housing market conditions make these uses unviable. HOME funding for development and multifamily rehabilitations is also recommended to be made available as loans or grants, with ultimate decisions on loan/grant terms being determined by the Board for each individual project. This is anticipated to help relieve the financial burden on developers of creating affordable housing. CDBG funding for owner-occupied rehabilitation is also recommended to be made available as forgivable grants under certain conditions. Further details of funded activities and how they compare to the activities identified in the 2020-2024 Consolidated Plan are included in the attachments.
The AAP includes certifications assuring HUD that the County has complied with all applicable Federal regulations and requirements. These include conducting two public hearings, maintaining a drug-free workplace, limiting lobbying, and ensuring that the HUD-funded activities will principally benefit persons at or below 80% AMI. Unlike previous years, HUD’s approval of the Consolidated Plan is also contingent on the Plan’s compliance with three recent Executive Orders (E.O.) highlighted by HUD in their instructions to the County - E.O. 14151 (Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing), E.O. 14173 (Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity), and E.O. 14168 (Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government). The narrative within the draft Consolidated Plan has been modified from its current form to be compliant with those orders prior to submission to HUD.
OTHER REVIEWING AGENCIES:
The Consolidated Plan Committee (CPC) conducted a noticed public hearing on housing and community development needs during its meeting on October 16, 2024. The CPC includes Housing and Community Development Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) members from unincorporated area communities and neighborhoods (appointed by your Board), and representatives from the eight participating cities. Federal regulations at 24 CFR Part 91 require public review of the draft Consolidated Plan, which has been available for public comment on the County’s website at www.fresnocountyca.gov/grants and the Central Branch of the Fresno County Public Library since June 6, 2025. No public comments had been received as of July 21, 2025. The public comment period will conclude with the public hearing on August 5th. Modifications to the Consolidated Plan discussed during the item’s public hearing will be incorporated into the draft prior to submission to HUD.
REFERENCE MATERIAL:
BAI #40, August 8, 2023
BAI #9, March 14, 2023
ATTACHMENTS INCLUDED AND/OR ON FILE:
Presentation
On file with Clerk - 2025-29 Consolidated Plan
On file with Clerk - Redline
On file with Clerk - June Draft for Public Comment
On file with Clerk - Survey Responses
CAO ANALYST:
Dylan McCully