Vineyard towns lost out on vital community block grant funding for this year, but will be eligible to apply again next year, after the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development decided to forgo an every-other-year funding model last month.

The housing department eliminated the alternate year funding proposal from its 2012 action plan after a public hearing in August. Instead the department will limit the maximum amount of funding over a two-year period to $1.35 million per town.

Melissa Norton Vincent reported the good news to the all-Island selectmen at their monthly meeting last week. Mrs. Vincent is the Island program manager with The Resource Inc., the company that administers the housing rehabilitation program.

She said the funding caps should not affect Island towns.

“It should not be a problem to us because we divide it between so many towns,” Mrs. Vincent told the Gazette this week.

Block grants are used to pay for housing rehabilitation projects such as leaky roofs, replacing old windows and winterizing homes. They also provide child care subsidies for Vineyard parents who may not otherwise be able to pay for day care.

The Island has benefited from more than $14 million in block grant monies over the past eight years, helping to rehabilitate 250 homes and provide 77 Island families with child care subsidies.

This year the Vineyard was disqualified from receiving block grant monies due to incorrectly worded legal advertisements for public hearings associated with two applications.

Mrs. Vincent said there is some money available for Oak Bluffs and Tisbury from an account that receives funds when a property that received grant money for rehabilitation is sold. A portion of the sale proceeds goes into the account, called a program income account.

The Oak Bluffs program income account has $119,000 available for housing rehabilitation; Mrs. Vincent suggested a “mini-housing rehab” program for this year.

“I have a waiting list of six people in Oak Bluffs . . . It’s out here floating to them and it’s a great way to use the program income,” she said.

Also last week the all-Island selectmen heard a presentation from William Waterway of the Martha’s Vineyard Poets Society about starting a process to elect the first Martha’s Vineyard poet laureate.