The County receives funding from HUD to operate a community development block grant (CDBG) program in its unincorporated areas and in the fifteen following cities with populations of less than 50,000:

The County receives about $2.3 million a year from HUD for this program which can be used for a variety of purposes as long as they either eradicate blight, principally benefit low/moderate income people, or eliminate a community-threatening condition. The County uses about 20% of this funding to operate the program and another 15% to fund a Home Loan Counseling Center. The remaining 65% is allocated to the cities using a formula that takes into account a city's population and the percentage of it that is low/moderate income.

Cities participat-ing in the CDBG program are generally allow-ed to utilize their annual al-locations, which typically range from $50,000 to $175,000, for whatever eligi-ble projects they desire as long as they do not jeopardize the County’s ability to meet HUD’s annual spending requirement. Most of the money received by the cities is used for code enforcement and for capital improvement projects like reconstructing streets, replacing water/sewer lines, installing bridges, or renovating parks. Projects are typically determined every April-May.  For more information about the County’s CDBG program, please call (214) 653-6368.

By virtue of its participation in the CDBG program, the County also receives HOME funding and Emergency Shelter Grant (ESG) funding from HUD.  The County’s ESG funds are used to help assist the operation of homeless shelters. For more information about this funding, please call (214) 653-6359.

The County typically allocates its HOME funds to a down-payment/closing cost assistance program for low/moderate-income home-buyers and to a replacement housing program which demolishes owner-occupied low/moderate-income homes that are too dilapidated to be economically repaired and replaces them with newly constructed homes with about 1000 square feet. For more information about the down-payment assistance program, please call (214) 819-6060.  For more information about the replacement housing program, please call (214) 653-7627.

As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the County also received about $4.4 million in Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) funding, $866,753 in Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program (HPRP) funding, and $866,753 in CDBG-Recovery funding, and as shown below, the vast majority of this funding has been expended.

The NSP funding was used by Dallas Area Habitat for Humanity to acquire, repair, and re-sell forty vacant foreclosed homes in targeted neighborhoods within Duncanville, DeSoto, Lancaster, and Cedar Hill, and the CDBG-Recovery funding was used to fund the construction of an additional nine homes under the County's replacement housing program.   The HPRP funding has been used to provide up to twelve months of  utility/rent assistance to people who are at-risk of becoming homeless; a portion of this funding still remains.   For more information about this program, please call (214) 653-6359.

The County has also recently received $1,364,426 in NSP 3 funding that will be used to acquire, repair, and re-sell foreclosed homes within targeted areas of Lancaster.  For more information about this funding, please call (214) 653-6359.