Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report for the 2011 program year — now there’s a title to thrill and chill.

On Monday night Auburn City Council members heard City Planning Director Kevin Snyder say a word or two about CAPER. Then people in the audience got a chance to comment on CAPER. Silence on CAPER.

But dull, bureacratic, red-tapey-sounding names don’t always tell the whole story.

Sometimes, as Michael Hursh, human services manager for the City of Auburn notes, there’s good stuff going on behind even the starchiest titles.

The CAPER is really an overall review of housing and community development activities undertaken in Auburn in 2011. Its primary purpose is to inform residents how and where the federal funds are spent and to assess the program’s accomplishments with respect to housing and community development goals listed in the CAPER. Ultimately the City forwards the report to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“The CAPER is incredibly important,” Hursh said. “It gives a bird’s eye view of the combined effect of combined City general funds and federal funds that Auburn gets to put toward community development and to help residents of vulnerable populations.”

Here are a few of the things the City has been able to do with the help of the federal government.

• Shaugnessy Park near Chinook Elementary School serves several neighborhoods in one of Auburn’s lowest economic census tracks. The CAPER describes how the City was able to make improvements to long-neglected park structures there it would not normally have been able to effect because of recent budget cuts to the general fund.

“There were structures up there that hadn’t been replaced for at least 20 years,” Hursh said. “Recreational facilities are vital there. Now, there’s fields leveled, new playground equipment and basketball courts. That is a prime example of federal funding in Auburn changing and impacting the lives of Auburn residents.”

• The CAPER goes on to describe the city-wide housing repairs program, which serves single, elderly homeowners, who, without the help would be homeless. Available to income-qualified homeowners, the program allows for small projects to be completed easily so the homes become livable. By fast tracking such projects and giving out small grant awards, the City helps with furnace replacements, plumbing repairs, roof repairs, front step replacement and deck replacement, basically anything that creates an unliveable condition for qualifying residents.

Here’s a big one.

“We were able to help Auburn Youth Resources in acquiring a property that will allow for a drop-in center to serve youth in a coordinated way with our activities center at Les Gove Park. This is a major step for Auburn,” Hursh said.

“… The CAPER shows how Auburn has existed in a collaborative and creative manner of funding for the resources that are so needed in this community. It shows how we lean on our partner agencies and other community development entities that exist here. King County is not so much a part of that any more because it is facing certain budget woes that impact our community directly. Auburn has historically taken an approach and continues with the policy that there are needs out there, and we will do everything we can to creatively fund resources that help our population.”