HUD AWARDS $1.4 MILLION IN INDIAN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT FUNDS TO FOUR NATIVE ALASKA VILLAGES TO MEET COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT NEEDS
Newtok Villages & Ivanof Bay Tribe win "imminent threat" grants and Organized Village of Grayling & Northway Village win competitive ICDBG grants

ANCHORAGE - The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has awarded a total of $1,410,822 in Indian Community Development Block Grants to four Native Alaska Villages to meet their housing and community development needs.

"These grants will support our Native American communities as they work to improve housing conditions and neighborhoods," said HUD Secretary Ben Carson. "HUD will continue to be a steadfast partner to Tribes as they design and execute their community development plans."

Newtok Village and the Ivanof Bay Tribe each received ICDBG "imminent threat" grants to meet "urgent," one-of-a-kind priorities while the Organized Village of Grayling and Nottoway Village were awarded regular ICDBG resulting from ICDBG funds awarded, but not expended from a fiscal year 2015 ICDBG funding competition.

The ICDBG program is a mostly competitive funding program which awards funding to eligible grantees - Federally-recognized Tribes, Villages and/or their Tribally-Designated Housing Entities - to help address their housing, community and economic development priorities. In September, for example, HUD competitively awarded some $7 million in ICDBG funds to 14 Alaska Tribes and Villages as part of a competition that awarded $55 million to 77 Tribes and Villages nationwide.

Competitive ICDBG grants to Alaska Tribes and villages may not exceed $600,000. In addition, under the ICDBG program HUD also is authorized to reserve a portion of each year's ICDBG appropriations to award "imminent threat" grants that are intended to alleviate or remove imminent threats to health or safety. ICDBG "imminent threat grants" may not exceed $450,000. Projects in a Presidentially-declared disaster area may receive up to $900,000. Neither Newtok nor Ivanof Bay is in such an area.

Today's ICDBG awards are for the following housing and community development projects identified by the villages:

• Newtok Village has some 230 residents and is located 500 miles west of Anchorage. It will use its $450,000 "imminent threat" ICDBG grant to complete mechanical, electrical and plumbing at the Metarvik Evacuation Center. The village has decided to relocate from its current site to the higher and drier Metarvik site because of significant erosion from rising waters. In 2016 the village experienced a severe winter storm which according to the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys, destroyed 147 feet of the village's coastline and the village school is just 250 feet from the coast line. The Center temporarily will house the village school until a permanent school building is constructed at Metarvik.

• The Ivanof Bay Tribe's village has under 20 residents on the Alaska Peninsula some 500 miles southwest of Anchorage. It will use its $360,822 ICDBG "imminent threat" grant to drill two wells to replace their broken well and to insure that residents have access to safe drinking water. Residents have been using a nearby creek as their water source, but the Alaska Department of Environmental Quality has determined that the creek's water may be contaminated. The risks to residents is even greater since the village lacks on-site medical facilities or staff and such care would only be available by Coast Guard evacuation, weather permitting.

• Northway, Village has some 70 residents 370 miles northeast of Anchorage and near the border with Canada. It will use its ICDBG grant of $148,940 to acquire and rehabilitate housing in collaboration with the Interior Regional Housing Authority.

• The Organized Village of Grayling, a village of just under 200 residents almost 350 miles northwest of Anchorage. It will use, its ICDBG grant of $600,000 to construct two, 3-bedroom houses in collaboration with the Interior Region al Housing Authority.

For more about HUD's ICDBG program, visit HUD's website.

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