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Housing and Economic Development <br />• To preserve and increase funding for the Community Development Block Grant <br />Program (CDBG) and the federal HOME program, which are catalysts for <br />creating more affordable housing; <br />• To preserve resources to sustain existing public housing throughout the Metro <br />Area; <br />• Maintaining the federal tax credit program to help spur construction and secure <br />additional private investment; <br />• To create and implement a more streamlined procedural method for local units <br />of government to participate in and access federal funding and services dealing <br />with grants, loans, and tax incentive programs for economic and community <br />development efforts; <br />• Additional resources to assist communities to meet obligations to reduce barriers <br />to and promote fair housing and equal opportunity; <br />• To maintain and increase resources to Section 8 funding and to support <br />incentives for rental property owners to participate in the program; and <br />• To support federal funding to provide short-term assistance for HRAs in order <br />to facilitate the sale of tax-exempt bonds. <br />3-1 Vacant, Boarded, and Foreclosed Properties and Properties at Risk <br />Abandoned residential and commercial properties can harm communities when the <br />presence of vacant buildings results in reduced property values and increased crime. The <br />additional public safety and code enforcement costs of managing vacant properties are a <br />financial strain on cities. <br />Metro Cities supports solutions to vacant and boarded properties that recognize <br />three things: (1) Prevention is more cost effective than a cure. (2) The causes of this <br />problem are many and varied, thus the solutions must be as well. (3) It is not simply <br />a "city" problem so cities must not be expected to bear the bulk of the burden of <br />mitigation. <br />Further, Metro Cities supports some specific proposals: <br />• Registration of vacant and boarded properties; <br />• Allowing cities to acquire vacant and boarded properties before deterioration <br />and vandalism result in unsalvageable structures; including providing financial <br />tools such as increasing eminent domain flexibility; <br />26 2016 Legislative Policies <br />