IMPACT

A popular tourist destination in the heart of Florida, the community of St. Johns County is comprised of many small businesses and families that rely on tourism for their livelihood. Capital Access has been consulting and providing direct program management services to  St. Johns County since 2018 – including HUD grant project, compliance, and financial management services, and supporting their Entitlement CDBG, CDBG-CV (CARES Act), and CDBG-Disaster Recovery programs. Capital Access assists with IDIS clean-up of programs and reporting and in drafting the 2021-2026 Consolidated Plan, Annual Action Plan, Consolidated Annual Performance Evaluation Report (CAPER), and preparation for and response to HUD Monitorings. Our firm also provided an evaluation of applications for the first year of CDBG Entitlement dollars and later assisted with the creation of policies and procedures for those programs.

Capital Access even helped St. Johns County develop its Back to Business (B2B) program. Starting with program design, our team identified underwriting and compliance pathways, and then managed the production of 60 COVID relief small business assistance grants. The B2B program was funded with $585k in CDBG-CV funds and was launched before HUD issued the CDBG-CV regulatory notice.

The county’s Small Business Recovery Grant Program (SBRG) was designed to assist small businesses in St. Johns County that were in need for short-term assistance due to disruption of business operations and loss of revenue as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Assistance was distributed in the form of grants up to $10,000 to offset costs such as payroll, rent, and utilities. This program assisted businesses that had a critical need for immediate assistance until other sources of funding could be obtained or until authorities relaxed social distancing requirements.

We are very proud that after an extensive HUD monitoring process, the St. Johns County B2B program had no compliance findings.

Our services included facilitations, meetings, and consultations with internal and external stakeholders. As a result of this engagement, the County developed, implemented, and utilized electronic portals through a customized web-based grants management platform. Capital Access continues to provide ongoing policy support for the County’s CDBG Entitlement program.