By: Diane Benjamin

I talked to a Bloomington resident yesterday who lives in an area that was severely affected by sewage spewing from drains in his basement. He is more interested in getting the problem fixed than financial help. I sent him the links below to information to share with his neighbors. Amazingly most citizens don’t watch Council meetings! They care about their blood pressure and don’t want to waste 2-3 hours.

The City of Bloomington website is the very hard to navigate, I’ve been using it for years and still have trouble finding information. If they have a page showing all the help that might be available I can’t find it. All links should be on one of those scrolls screens on the Main Menu. Instead they have info about the Fall bulk pickup, assistance with Utility bills, Assistance paying rent, and CDBG-CV Small Business Grants. The link for the last one says it expired July 31st.

Here’s the links I did find:

1)

This link describes the overhead sewer program with supposedly will prevent sewage from backing up in basements during heavy rains:

Overhead Sewer Grant Program | City of Bloomington, Illinois

2)

This link is to apply for Community Development Block Grants funds that are supposedly still available:

Community Development Block Grant COVID-19 (CDBG-CV) | City of Bloomington, Illinois

3)

If the City has this link on their website, it is hidden. This link has information for Illinois Housing Development Authority (IHDA) loans. There are many links on this page to a lot of information. You might have to go through the City to apply for a loan. I think if you stay in your house for 5 years after repairs are done the loan is forgiven.

Fixing My Home – IHDA

If somebody knows where this is listed on the City site, please post or send me a link. People who post to the City website need lessons in “tagging”. It makes locating what people are looking for a lot easier!

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