City officials in Lawton have not yet decided how funds in the current Community Development Block Grant should be allocated among local public service organizations that support the homeless.
Homelessness is “the Number 1 thing we want to address” with Lawton’s CDBG, Mayor Stan Booker said. For the current Fiscal Year 2025 the city received a CDBG Entitlement Grant of $742,497 administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, program director Gary Brooks said.
“We don’t require any demonstration metrics” for receipt of CDBG grants that address homelessness, Councilman Randy Warren observed during a March 25 City Council meeting. “We’ve got to start measuring results, because the same groups are getting CDBG money year after year.”
The April 1 meeting of the Homeless Action Committee was scheduled to include a discussion about “the current method in which applications for CDBG funding are evaluated,” and consideration of the ranking system used to grade each of the nine public service organizations (PSO) that address homelessness in Lawton.
The PSOs include QUEST, Grandeur of Grace, Christian Family Counseling Center, Family Promise of Lawton, Teen Court, Lawton Support Services, Marie Detty Youth and Family Services, Center for Creative Living, and All About Understanding.
In a March 13 letter to the City Council, the PSOs urged city officials to continue distributing the CDBG grant funds equally because many of them use the city funding as leverage to secure state, federal, and private grants.
“These ‘external funders’ often look for demonstrated municipal support when determining eligibility, and any reduction in city funding could jeopardize additional resources that directly impact the most vulnerable members of our community,” the PSOs cautioned.
The City Council referred the subject to the Homeless Action Committee, but their April 1 meeting ran long so the issue was deferred again.
“I’ll try to have another Homeless Action Committee meeting to deal with this,” Booker told Southwest Ledger on April 2. “However, the decision is ultimately up to the City Council,” he noted. “The council wants measurable metrics.” Of the nearly three-quarters of a million dollars the City of Lawton received this fiscal year in its CDBG, $111,500 was earmarked for shelters and other services that are sponsored by public service organizations in support of the homeless, according to Brooks.
He also said $105,000 was reserved for exterior improvements, $70,000 for emergency repairs, and $149,000 was designated for administration of the grant.
The CDBG program requires at least 70% of the funds to be used to support the needs of lowand moderate-income families and individuals, he said.
The City of Lawton also received a HOME Entitlement Grant of $374,881 for FY25; those funds and the CDBG are intended to prevent low- and moderate- income households from becoming homeless, Brooks indicated.
HUD’s HOME program historically has provided formula grants to states and units of general local government to finance a wide range of activities intended to “produce and maintain affordable rental and home ownership housing and provide tenant-based rental assistance for low-income households.”
City Hall “has not received notice of CDBG and HOME grant funding for Fiscal Year 2026,” which starts July 1, Communications Manager Caitlin Gatlin said.