City of Quincy celebrates 46 years of CDBG success

HUD New England Regional Administrator Juana Matias joins Congressman Stephen Lynch, City of Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch and local and state officials at Quincy College to celebrate the City's use of CDBG funds to support economic development.

In the City of Quincy, Regional Administrator Matias joined Mayor Thomas Koch and Congressman Stephen Lynch on April 14, along with local and state officials at Quincy College to celebrate the cities investment of $98 million in CDBG funds from HUD over the past 46 years, including $2.26 million in CDBG-CV Cares Act funds.

Over 75 percent of Quincy's CDBG-CV allocation has been utilized for economic development activities, including $1.1 million to facilitate an emergency grant program for small businesses in the Spring of 2020; $50 thousand to the Quincy Chamber of Commerce and $100 thousand to QUBIC Labs for microenterprise development programs.

"When we partner with Quincy good things are going to happen," said Congressman Lynch in talking about the City's use of federal CDBG funds.

The single largest recipient of CDBG-CV funds, $430 thousand has been Quincy College (QC) for workforce development. The City of Quincy started providing CDBG funds to QC in 2019 for the administration of a Home Health Aide (HHA) Career Pathway program. In 2020, the college applied for renewal funding for the HHA program, as well as funding for a Substance Abuse Pre-Licensing Sequencing Program. Given the success of these programs, coupled with the CDBG-CV funds provided to the city through the CARES Act, the city provided QC with an allocation of $430,000 in January 2021 to offer a suite of eight workforce development programs to unemployed; underemployed; low-moderate income individuals. To date, 49 students have completed one of these certificate programs; and another 33 are in progress.

"It is our federal and local partnerships that have made our CDBG program such a success and are providing the City of Quincy with workforce programs that are fostering inclusive economic growth," said Regional Administrator Matias.

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