DELAWARE — Delaware County will receive $434,811 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to fund infrastructure, public facilities and public services projects.
This funding comes with Delaware County’s second year of participating in the Community Development Block Grant Program (CDBG), a federal funding program that invests in community needs.
“The county is able to determine its own needs and how it wants to spend the funding, communicate that up to the federal government and then receives funding to make progress towards those goals,” Founder and Principal of Civic Uplift Carolyn Thurman said.
Civic Uplift is responsible for helping Delaware County properly navigate and set up the funding program.
The program allows for participating communities to apply for the HUD funding to complete projects, such as infrastructure improvements, pubic facilities improvements, acquisition of land, housing rehabilitation and economic development, like job creation.
The HUD funding provides the “seed money” for a county’s designated programs, then communities can apply for the money through an internal application later this summer.
As of now, Marlboro Township, Orange Township, Ostrander, Shawnee Hills and Powell are the only entities opted in to participate, but Thurman said Ashley and Galena will opt in for 2027.
All other townships and municipalities have opted out of program participation.
In 2025, Delaware County Commissioners, who have the final say about which projects receive funding, approved Ostrander to receive $150,000 for sidewalks improvements and People in Need Inc. of Delaware County to receive $27,000 to support people accessing its food bank.
Those projects are still in the works now. There is also carryover from the 2025 of $145,527, bringing the total pool of funds to $580,338; however, the county does not have the 2026 funds yet, as the application process is still open.
“Since we are still in the process of doing those projects, we’re adding the current year’s allocation to those and increasing the bucket of funding. Then we’ll go back out to the communities to ask for new projects,” Thurman said.
There is also now an active public comment period by emailing Thurman at via carolyn@civicuplift.org or JNahvi@co.delaware.oh.us.
Program background
The county officially decided to become apart of the HUD program in 2024.
Prior to receiving funding, county officials worked with Civic Uplift to create a 2025-2029 consolidated plan to establish community goals and priority needs.
The two conducted focus groups, public meetings, a community survey and pop-ups at community events to talk to stakeholders and residents.
The results helped the county create four goals for the program:
- Invest in community infrastructure.
- Support sustainable neighborhoods.
- Promote economic opportunity.
- Administer the program effectively.
“Every individual year you have a new budget for how you will achieve those goals,” Thurman said.
She also said: “We have plenty of money, we’re not really turning away infrastructure projects right now.”
But she expects as the CDBG develops further and more communities complete infrastructure and other projects, the program will become more competitive.
