Lansford Borough Council hopes residents will complete a second round of income surveys that will allow a neighborhood to qualify for Community Development Block Grant funding.

Council wants to use CDBG funds to reconstruct West Ridge Street, which has been deteriorating for several years.

The surveys are needed to show that street improvement project benefits low and moderate income individuals to be eligible for the CDBG program.

Only 27 of the needed 53 households returned the surveys, according the county’s planning and development office, Council President Bruce Markovich said Tuesday during a workshop meeting.

“They will allow us to send out a second round of surveys,” he said. “We want to try to do that to try to get more people to respond.”

The county will extend the deadline for the surveys to see if more residents will respond. The surveys included a self-addressed, stamped envelope to facilitate the return.

“The problem I see with that is, the majority of people don’t want anybody to know who they are, where they’re living, how much money they’re making,” Markovich said. “This is an up road battle to try to get these surveys done.”

Markovich reached out to Dave Bodnar, county planning director, who administers the CDBG program, for a list of projects the borough can apply for that don’t need an income survey, he said.

“If the surveys are going to be an issue and people aren’t going to fill them out, then we need to focus on those projects that don’t require a survey,” Markovich said.

The borough tried to use CDBG funds to rehabilitate Cortright Street from Abbott to Water streets, but was unable to get enough responses so shifted the 2024 CDBG funds to demolition.

One resident did tell council that not all the people living in that neighborhood received the survey.