Housing repair assistance, new playground equipment and a business loan repayment are a portion of what Orem City is recommending its $846,494 in Community Development Block Grants go toward.

Presented during an Orem City Council meeting Tuesday night, the federally funded CDBG will be divided out to a number of public and nonpublic services if approved by the City Council following a 30-day public comment period.

The main objective of the grant funds is to provide housing and community development aid to people who make less than 80% of the annual median income. According to U.S. Census Bureau estimates for 2023, Orem has a median household income of $81,000 and a 10% poverty rate.

“It is amazing sometimes the problems we hear of, like when the plumbing goes out and they’ve been trying to live without plumbing for a while, or the roof is leaking or the floor is falling through — that kind of thing,” Orem Management Analyst Heather Cox, a member of the CDBG advisory commission, told the Daily Herald. “It’s just not a very livable situation. So that’s what we’re trying to do with some of these funds.”

Nonpublic services are projected to receive $752,820 of the budget, with some funds going directly toward housing aids, including $57,000 for Orem’s critical home repair program and $17,000 to The Fuller Center for Housing.

Roughly $280,000 is recommended to replace the playground equipment at Cherryhill Park, located in a low median income, or LMI, neighborhood in south Orem, and the Orem Police Department’s Code Enforcement Team is proposed to receive $161,500 to fund full-time personnel and supplies, Cox said.

If the recommendations are approved, $126,529 will go to Mountain Association of Governors and Orem City Administration and $101,369 will go to a Section 108 loan repayment, which Orem Finance Director Brandon Nelson confirmed at the city council meeting is the final payment of a car dealership incentive.

Cox said she did not know the specifics of the car dealership loan, but said business loans are sometimes utilized in CDBG and that the city has been paying for this particular loan for over a decade.

“The whole idea is tied to job creation,” she said. “And I know in other revolving loan funds that we’ve done, the business owner has to prove that they employed someone who is LMI with an LMI income.”

With the loan paid off after this year, Cox said she expects it will free up room to put CDBG money in something else.

For 2025, public services are recommended to receive $93,674 from CDBG, including $14,949 to Rocky Mountain University to help LMI people receive health care services, $35,000 to Utah Tax Help Services and $10,000 to Big Brothers Big Sisters.

Also proposed is $30,000 toward Orem Police Department victim services, $1,896.90 to the city police’s homeless services and $1,827.70 for Orem’s neighborhood preservation and camp cleanup.

“The $30,000 helps pay for a victim advocate in our police department,” Cox said. “PD homeless services help pay for basic toiletries in the library and things like that.”

Cox said there is concern from members of the CDBG committee over the new Department of Government Efficiency and whether it would cut CDBG funding, which comes from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and added she is unsure of the program’s status herself.

“I’m just going to operate as if they are going to come back,” she said.