HACAP, Senior Village receive grants

Two non-profit organizations in the county were recently awarded grants to refurbish low-income housing. Washington County HACAP received a grant of approximately $80,000 to renovate space in Old Main into apartments. Riverside Senior Village received a grant of $190,000 to refurbish 30 apartments. The grants were awarded earlier this month by the East Central Iowa Housing Trust Fund.

Ed Raber is on the board of directors of East Central Iowa Housing Trust Fund and HACAP?s board of directors. He said that the trust fund, which covers four counties in eastern Iowa, awarded two grants in the fall and that both of them were for projects in Washington County. He said that was a unique circumstance and is unlikely to happen again next year.

Raber said that in the near future HACAP will move into Building I at Orchard Hill, which is currently vacant. It will relocate its Head Start classrooms, its food pantry and its offices to Building 2. The only thing which will remain in Old Main are the apartments. The space that is left vacant in Old Main will be converted into four new apartments.

?This move is going to help create a better early childcare center,? Raber. ?I can?t think of a better site for those things. There is not a lot of affordable rent-assistance housing in Washington or Washington County. It will be nice to add a few more apartments for low-income families in the county.?

Raber said that the best thing about HACAP?s residency program is its on-site social workers who help the families who live there. He said the focus of HACAP?s residency program is families with children.

Don Yoder had been the manager of the Riverside Senior Village for five years until October. He said there are eight buildings in the complex and that they house 30 dwellings. He said the grant money will be spent on air conditioners for the apartments.

?We intended to have the money go to a number of new sidewalks,? he said. ?We want some money to go for outside lighting to replace what?s there now, which is bad. We were going to remodel the interior of the apartments, but I don?t know how many. Then we were also going to re-roof some of the buildings.?

Yoder said he is excited to see the renovations to the senior village.

?We feel fortunate to receive the grant,? he said. ?It?s a tremendous asset to the village. It will be nice to update and rehab a number of buildings and replace appliances.?

Yoder said that the requirements to stay at the senior village are that the person be 62 years old or older, or have a handicap or disability. He said there is also an income ceiling but that this does not usually prevent applicants from living at the village.

Public Information Coordinator Darin Leach of the USDA?s Rural Development program said that the USDA contributed $21 million toward rental assistance in Iowa last year. The amount of rental assistance varied between $9 million and $15 million from 2001 to 2009 but in 2010 it shot up to $24 million.

Bill Menner, director of USDA Rural Development in Iowa, said the number of apartment complexes for low-income people his agency has helped fund has dropped in recent years.

?During the early 1970s through the mid 1980s our agency was helping finance the building of as many as 60 complexes a year,? Menner said. ?The construction pace has slowed in recent years due to changes in demographics, saturation of some markets and reduction in program funding.?

Leach said Riverside Senior Village received a forgivable loan in conjunction with the USDA Rural Development program. That loan was for $110,000 for improvements to the apartments. USDA Rural Development loans have been used for other apartment complexes in Ainsworth, Kalona, Washington, Wellman and Riverside.

?We had more apartments 10 or 20 years ago than we do now,? Leach said. ?We?re issuing fewer new loans for apartment construction. You have to ask, ?At what point do you reach saturation?? We hope rural Iowa continues to grow, but the census shows that the metro areas are growing, not the rural areas. If there are vacancies in the existing apartments, it doesn?t make sense to build new ones.?