Alaska towns can build housing with this grant now, up to a point

For the first time, Alaska communities can use federal Community Development Block Grant money to build housing. The state is rewriting its application handbook to say so, and expects to have it out by Oct. 1.

The change comes from the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which became law in July. It added new construction of affordable housing to the list of things the grant can pay for, and extended the program's low- and moderate-income requirement to cover it.

It also capped construction at 20 percent of whatever a recipient gets. Alaska has about $2.5 million to hand out this year, with no community able to take more than $850,000. At that ceiling, the most any single town could put toward actually building something is about $170,000.

Until now the handbook occupied an odd middle ground: housing activities were eligible under the program's rules, but the program did not target housing. The rewrite is meant to end that.

Every Alaska municipality except Anchorage can apply, and applications are due Dec. 4. Anchorage runs its own block grant and is weighing how to spend the same new authority, with about $400,000 available for construction there.

The state holds two application workshops over Zoom, Oct. 15 and Oct. 28. Income tables showing how many residents in each community fall under the program's threshold are due to post this week.