Richmond’s director of housing and community development told council members the city’s mobile-home repair program has funds available for new repairs but that the work has schedule and administrative lead time.

Merrick Malone, director of Housing and Community Development, said earlier allocations of $500,000 and $300,000 had been expended or are in progress; those projects reduced a waiting list from roughly 45 units down to about 10. Malone said the new fiscal-year appropriation of $800,000 has not yet been expended and will likely be used for repairs starting in the next fiscal year because of application and scheduling timelines.

“We currently are in contract with Project Homes who has done this work for the last couple of years,” Malone said. He told council the program’s work involves an application process, scheduling and implementation steps that create a natural lag between appropriation and expenditure.

Council member Turnbull asked for a breakdown of how the prior funds were spent, per-unit costs and the current status of projects. Malone said staff had provided that information to Turnbull’s office and would share it with other council members upon request. He said the average cost per repaired unit across past work was between $10,000 and $13,000.

Staff said they would circulate a unit-level accounting to council and that the $800,000 appropriation is available to begin new repairs pending administrative steps and scheduling.

No new policy or budget decisions were taken at the meeting on the mobile-home repair program; staff will provide the requested unit-level accounting to council members.