Community Development Block Grant

The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) was enacted in 1974 by president Gerald Ford through the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 and took effect in January 1975. It had bipartisan support, reportedly because liberal legislators shared its goal of extinguishing poverty and "urban blight" and conservative legislators appreciated the control it placed in the hands of private investors and the reduction it made in the role of the United States government. Cities automatically qualified for the grant if they met the requirements, but were required to submit allocation reports (showing to whom and where the money was spent) and quarterly reports to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD's records were disputed, and there were complaints that Southern cities, in particular, spent grant money in affluent neighborhoods. CDBG funds were distributed in such a way as to generate a bias against older (declining) frostbelt cities, cities that were losing population to the sunbelt.

When Congress re-authorized CDBG in 1978, they instituted a dual formula to strengthen controls on how money was spent and to better serve communities with different types of problems. Formula A (based on poverty rate, population, and overcrowding) typically benefits rapidly growing cities with high poverty that lack affordable housing. Formula B (based on age of housing stock, poverty rate, and growth lag) tends to benefit older cities with large amounts of old and deteriorating housing. HUD calculates both formulas for all entitlement grantees and awards the larger amount, but Congressional appropriation has ultimate determination on program funding. The 1978 re-authorization also required HUD to award a "rural set-aside" of at least 30% of all CDBG funds to states for projects in rural areas.

Later Congressional changes created additional small CDBG set-asides that fund programs in minority-serving universities (Section 107), in US territories such as Guam, and for large-scale rehabilitation loans (Section 108).