HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The Board of Reno County Commissioners heard from Interfaith Housing and from the South Central Kansas Economic Development District on their housing proposals for the usage of American Rescue Plan Act funds on Tuesday.
Clint Nelson, Director of Housing Development with Interfaith Housing noted that they had meetings with each of the communities across the county and that their needs were as diverse as the communities themselves, but the general themes included an aging population that can no longer keep up the maintenance on their homes and a few severely blighted properties that need dealt with through tearing them down.
Allocations will be provided to each community and will cover all costs for marketing, community coordinator and project selections. Each community will be responsible for choosing what projects they are wanting to complete and the amount set per project not to exceed $15,000 per project unless approved by Interfaith’s General Contractor.
The full request by Interfaith was for $4,465,931, but Nelson said if it's necessary not to fund the full request to try to keep the rural community requests whole as much as possible.
Julia Westfahl and Marc Howell with SCKEDD outlined their proposal for an extension of their Housing Resurgence Program. The program is designed to turn blighted houses into attractive, energy efficient homes that will be sold to owner-occupied buyers.
SCKEDD will provide $5,000 in down payment assistance to each buyer and also work to leverage local lenders and down payment assistance programs to help buyers avoid Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI). Their request was for $500,000.
The county commission appears to be willing to spend about $4 million on the housing piece, as of the close of Tuesday's meeting.