PART 2: KRAHAM HAS BEEN SITTING ON NEARLY $2 MILLION OF FEDERAL RECOVERY FUNDS TO HELP THE HOMELESS
If you haven’t noticed, Christ Episcopal Church in downtown Binghamton (across from Lost Dog Café) has been providing its grounds for homeless folks to pitch tents and its facilities for hygenic needs and to eat meals together. Their campaign, “Unhoused, Still Human,” is an inspiring expression of faith and love for all.
Today, the church’s Facebook account featured a video (click image below for link to video) by Father Scott Parnell explaining how Mayor Kraham’s administration sent the church a zoning violation last week because of the tents. Father Parnell then explained he received a personal phone call from Mayor Kraham on Friday, September 26th, in which the Mayor said he would be pursuing legal action against the church.
As most folks know, the number of folks homeless has surged in the last few years due to skyrocketing rents and a lack of deeply affordable housing units.
Most folks know that Mayor Kraham’s solution has been to raid and sweep encampments with public works employees and police. He has held a number of media events showcasing his “tough guy” approach, and promising to arrest those who don’t ‘disappear’ from public sight.
What folks don’t know is that, during his entire first term, Mayor Kraham has been sitting on $1.9 MILLION dollars in pandemic recovery funds meant EXCLUSIVELY to help those who are homeless.
Every entitlement community (Binghamton is one of thousands) and state received an allocation of these special funds (called HOME-ARP) back in 2021, under the American Rescue Plan. These are distinct from the $46 million in ARPA funds the City received that David-Kraham spent on a lot of “flexible” recovery needs (ya know, like a new parking ramp for Boscovs and facade grants for downtown property owners). As stated by US Housing and Urban Development, these separate HOME-ARP funds were “to invest in housing and assistance for people experiencing homelessness and other vulnerable populations.” HUD’s website on the funding is here.
All recipients had to develop an allocation plan, which included a needs assessment and gap analysis. Binghamton’s 2021 draft HOME-ARP Plan is here. Oddly, “the most transparent mayor in history” didn’t bother to publish a final plan. Or bother to tell the public about these funds.
But the City did allocate these HOME-ARP funds for particular activities and, unfortunately, they’ve been sitting unused for the last four years, Kraham’s entire first term. According to the City’s own budget report, the nearly $1,900,000 in HOME-ARP funds were allocated as follows:
- Rental Assistance, $774,457
- Supportive Services, $871,264
- Program Administration, $256,921
Here are the two relevant pages of the 8/231/25 Budget to Actual Report provided by the City early in September to comply with my FOIL request, and I’ve highlighted the lines showing how all the HOME-ARP funds allocated are STILL available, untouched.
Are you seeing a pattern? That’s the point of this series.
As explained in the first piece of this series, this summer, Mayor Kraham was warned for the second year in a row by US HUD that he failed to spend another federal community development grant, CDBG, in a timely manner. Kraham was facing the shame of being the first mayor in Binghamton’s history to have future CDBG allocations (awarded every year) reduced by hundreds of thousands as a penalty. We now know that Kraham raced to the Fire Chief in June and begged him to immediately come up with equipment that he could spend CDBG funds on as a solution to his own financial mismanagement crisis. Worse, Kraham then used the department and the union as a pawn to try to score political points when City Council was confused by the ask, voted not to use the CDBG funds, but assured the Fire Chief and the Fire union that they’d happily support these asks three months later during the 2026 Budget Process. Kraham’s deception on this issue was sufficient alone to deny him a second term.
But now we know that his financial mismanagement extends to another federal housing grant–and the implications are far worse.
For four years, this guy has been sitting on $1,900,000 in federal funds meant exclusively to help those who are homeless. Instead, he’s chosen to criminalize homelessness, sweep encampments that can be both dangerous and devastating to those impacted, and now he’s threatening a community of faith with lawsuits and enforcement actions because they dare demonstrate their love of others and a courageous commitment to see the dignity in all humans.
I know Jared’s political response.
“We have until 2030 to spend these funds.” That’s true, but the crisis is NOW (and has been for a few years now). You made a choice, Jared. You chose to send police to harass the homeless and you chose to threaten those who are helping the homeless. The right choice–the reasonable, humane choice–would have been to find every and any way to allocate these federal recovery funds to those organizations that are committed to serve, with dignity and care, those who are homeless. You made your choice (again and again).
Or the polished politician who is good at manufacturing positive news headlines (even if he has to forge them), might say, “We issued a request for proposals (RFPs) twice and haven’t received credible applications.” The first part is true, but for whatever reason, the City’s recent RFP is ABSURDLY restrictive, limiting eligible applicants to entities that are certified as Binghamton Community Housing Development Organizations (CHDOs). That’s only four organizations (First Ward Action Council, Greater Opportunities, Metro Interfaith, and SEPP). I’ve read about 20 RFPs from other communities in NYS and elsewhere, and NOBODY has that restriction. All other RFPs list ANY nonprofit as eligible. Jared, you chose restrictions because you wanted to work with only those organizations that won’t criticize you. You made your choice.
Kraham’s mismanagement of HUD funds has been an inexcusable disaster. His efforts to ‘cover over’ such incompetence have been shameful.
Adult Kraham, the incompetent con-man, has shown he is unfit to serve our community. Come November, we get to make our choice.
[UPDATE, CLARIFICATION: I have since learned that the City’s HOME-ARP plan, drafted in 2021 and completed in 2022, had to be approved by HUD before funds were “released.” According to comments made by the City’s Director of Planning, Housing, and Community Development at a City Council Work Session (on 10/6/25), the funds were released in early 2023. So while these HOME-ARP funds were known for the entire four years of Kraham’s term, they were only available to allocate for the last two years.]