Café du HUD

OLYMPIA - The folks at Starbucks and Peets may want to keep an eye pealed for a competitor that, thanks to a HUD program, might be sneaking up on them. Well, not really.

It all starts with HUD's Community Development Block Grant - "CDBG" for the acronymically-inclined - program. Now celebrating the 50th anniversary of its enactment, CDBG provide much-needed Federal resources to local governments - states, metropolitan counties and cities and towns of all sizes. CDBG is not a blank check. Its authorizing legislation clearly specified that CDBG funds can be used for one of three and only three purposes - to principally benefit low- and moderate-income residents, to eliminate slums and blight or to meet urgent community development priorities.

The particulars are left to local communities that, within those broad parameters, decide the what's, where's of using CDBG funds to achieve their housing, community and economic development priorities. The from-the-ground-up approach has made CDBG one of the Federal government's most flexible, adaptable and nimble programs. And one of its most popular too.

Just ask a local official. Like Julián Castro, now serving as HUD's 16th Secretary who, a bit more than a year ago, was in his third term as Mayor of San Antonio, our 7th largest city, San Antonio. "CDBG is a program that actually matters where we live," he's said. "It enjoys bi-partisan support primarily because it is inherently flexible, allowing states and local communities (and their residents) to decide for themselves how to invest in their local priorities."

Olympia, the capital of Washington and home to almost 50,000 people on the southern shores of Puget Sound, has received an annual allocation of CDBG funds since 1982. Depending on how much funding the Congress appropriates, it's received around $300,000 to $400,000 a year. And it's made good use of CDBG funds to meet a wide variety of community needs.

Launching single-family and rental property rehabilitation loan programs. Improving the facades of downtown business. Acquiring land to expand the inventory of housing for the elderly. Repairing streets, rehabilitating community centers, refurbishing parks and playgrounds. Establishing a Downtown Ambassadors. Enforcing the building code and demolishing derelict buildings. Opening shelters for homeless families with children, victims of domestic violence and young people and funding development of the nationally-recognized Quixote Village that provides 30 units of "micro-housing" for the chronically homeless.

And roasting coffee. Well, the City's not actually roasting the coffee. The Olympia Coffee Roasting Company in downtown is, some one million beans a week from nine different countries around the world. Demand is high, so high that Olympia Coffee Roasting wants to triple its roasting and retail space.

Which is why the Olympia Council recently okayed allocation of CDBG funds to create, in a collaboration with the National Development Council, a Grow Olympia Fund. Olympia Coffee Roasting, is the first small business to receive a loan from the Fund. It surely won't be the last.

"Small businesses are what make our community strong," says Mayor Stephen Buxbaum (http://olympiawa.gov/news-and-faq-s/news-releases/071615-grow-olympia.aspx), "I am delighted that we were able to assist the Olympia Coffee Roasters realize their expansion goals. That's what the Grow Olympia Fund is all about; partnering with small businesses to create jobs and develop a more vibrant downtown. This is a great start for what I believe will be a very important part of our downtown development strategy."

Since 2010, the Company's grown 30 percent per year, co-owner Oliver Stormshak told The Olympian (www.theolympian.com/news/local/article26100802.html). With 29 employees on-board, the expansion will result in the hiring of "five to 10 more."

"It allows us to grow and do what we really love," co-owner Sam Schroeder told KING5, and "we're going to hire new employees as part of this. It's good on every level. We're a quality-of-life company." The Fund's $340,000 loan, he adds, "allows us to do it in a way that really sets it up for us to be successful in the future, to be very stable. That's going to help us support our coffee producers, help us support our staff and our customers."

So, if you swing by the Olympia Coffee Roasting Company for a pick-me-up, be prepared. If its coffee is as good as its business plan is sound, you'll be sure to want a second cup.

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