OCCD 2024 Spring Quarterly Meeting

Welcome to Spring 2024!  I am writing this newsletter to our membership on Baseball’s Opening Day.  It is exciting to know that warm weather and summer are right around the corner. 

Our Spring Meeting this year is really going to be special as we coordinate our Spring Ohio Conference of Community Development Meeting with the National Community Development Association's training and Region V Conference.  While NCDA members will be meeting earlier in the week, both organizations will come  together for a joint OCCD/NCDA Region V Conference Reception on Wednesday evening.  NCDA Region V Conference attendees are also invited to attend our Thursday OCCD Spring Meeting so this is a win-win for both organizations.  

The Spring Meeting is jam packed with well thought out and relevant presentations from members throughout the state.  We will start things off Thursday morning with a plenary on celebrating 50 years of CDBG led by Bill Rotert.  Leslie Rice, President of the National Fair Housing Alliance will discuss Fair Housing in 2024 and Beyond.  We have a great panel on Combining HOME and CDBG in projects featuring presenters from entitlement communities and non-entitlement communities so all of our members will have something to take away.  Our Homelessness panel features experts from around the state who work in the homelessness space. 

After lunch and our Business Meeting, John Zimmerman and Anna Breidenbach will give an informative presentation on Fair Housing and Reasonable Accommodations and Resources.  The Ohio Housing Finance Agency will give us an update on the new Single Family Tax Credit Program.

As you can see, the leadership at OCCD focuses on what we can bring our members to help inspire and educate them to improve the communities they work in with creative and thoughtful presentations.  But it doesn’t stop there.  The feedback from our training offerings has been very positive and we continually have more members taking the training offerings than we budget and anticipate.  The next round of trainings are no exception.  Make sure you take the opportunity to sign up for our very relevant Financial Management of Grant Funds and Davis Bacon training opportunities.

I look forward to seeing everyone who can attend the Spring Conference in person and meeting new colleagues at the joint reception.  Almost as excited as I am for the new Baseball season.

Adam Blake, VP, OCCD