The FY 2012 HUD Budget recently approved by Congress brings funding for Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) formula grants below the symbolic $3 billion mark.  As the chart below shows, funding for formula grants held steady through the middle of the previous decade, declined considerably for several years before seeing a brief reprieve in FY 2010 and has since seen a precipitous decline.

To put the FY 2012 funding level in context, the last time CDBG formula grants were funded at less than $3 billion was in FY 1990.  Since then, the nation’s population has grown by 23 percent and the number of CDBG entitlement communities has grown by 27 percent.  Clearly, fewer dollars are going to more low- and moderate-income neighborhoods, even before inflation is factored in.  Indeed, a perusal of annual reports to Congress shows that at the birth of CDBG in FY 1975, core formula grants were funded at $2.55 billion ($10.7 billion in 2011 dollars!), which is only $398 million below this year’s funding level.