Housing groups see surge in state assistance

Community Action housing trust funds throughout Southeast Iowa received higher annual grants than normal this year, according to a news release from the State Housing Trust Fund last week.

“The 2022 Local Housing Trust Fund awards represent the largest amount allocated through the program for local housing initiatives since the program’s inception,” said Iowa Finance Authority Executive Director Debi Durham in the statement. “The Iowa Legislature recognized the Local Housing Trust Fund program as a highly successful funding mechanism for advancing housing opportunities … This funding increase will soon make a very real impact on Iowans and our communities.”

The news release said the state expected its $9 million in grants, distributed across all 27 local housing trust funds in Iowa, to benefit over 2,100 families.

Grant recipients in Southeast Iowa say the housing assistance would make a big difference for residents trying to make ends meet.

“Where it really helps is keeping people in their homes that are on fixed incomes … that may not qualify for a bank loan, but yet they need a new roof or they need a new furnace,” said AHEAD Regional Housing Trust Fund spokesperson Chris Bowers, whose area includes Jefferson County. “If they qualify for low enough income, then they don’t have to make a payment on that loan until they would sell the house, and we don’t charge any interest on it.”

AHEAD received $347,525 from the recent round of grants, roughly $70,000 more than the year before, according to Bowers.

“The state approved removing the cap on the real estate transfer tax, which increased the amount of funding that would be available to the state housing trust fund,” he said. “It’s a pretty good amount. We could honestly use more, but this keeps it steady.”

Bowers said the help from the state had a cumulative impact over time.

“The great thing about this program is … these are typically dollars that get loaned out, low interest, no interest, deferred payment, but eventually the money comes back to the trust fund,” he said. “So then we can loan it out again and again. We’ve been able to recapture these dollars and continue to help the program revolve.”

​East Central Iowa Community Development & Housing Director Tracey Achenbach said the money had a wide range of possible uses for housing development.

“The two big things we have to do are we have to benefit persons of low income, and it has to be about housing,” Achenbach said. “Then it’s really up to every board of the housing trust fund … it can be new construction, it can be renovation of rental or owner-occupied properties. It can be for rental assistance, down payment assistance. We’ve done just about all of those things.”

Achenbach said the ECICOG group, which covers Washington, Jones, Benton and Iowa counties, was eagerly awaiting applications from qualifying organizations interested in a share of its $322,160 grant, especially on behalf of populations below the 30th income percentile.

“I was talking to the board about whether there are entities (like) church groups, county committees, anybody like that who has asked for rental assistance or for help when people need help,” she said. “We don’t normally work with people directly … what I’d like to do is be able to have an entity that is asking me for funding so we can utilize some.”

The number of people helped by each area’s grant will depend on the number and nature of applications to the given trust fund.

“We’ve funded a larger project with the funds … other times we just do smaller rehab projects where a homeowner gets $10,000 apiece for a new roof, furnace, stuff like that,” said Southeast Iowa Regional Planning Grant Administrator Sara Hecox on behalf of Great River Housing Inc, a trust fund whose area includes Henry County. “In different years we fund different things based on the needs and the requests from our region.”

While its hard to predict exactly where the money will go, Hecox gave a tentative breakdown of Great River Housing’s plans for its $356,579.

“Usually we set aside like $110,000 or something for rehab,” she said. “We currently don’t have any down payment assistance, so we would like to do some of that, and then the remaining, we’ve had some interest in projects that would like to do upper story work.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com