FRANKFORT—One agency based in Frankfort is helping thousands of Kentuckians find housing – all without using a single state general fund dollar.
“We don’t receive any general fund appropriation,” Kentucky Housing Corporation (KHC) Executive Director Edwin King told the Interim Joint Committee on Local Government last Wednesday. “With an abundance of appreciation for the task at hand in the next budget session, I won’t be coming before you to ask for any money.”
King and his colleagues at KHC—a quasi-governmental agency whose income comes primarily from sales of tax-exempt mortgage bonds and fee income from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD—appeared before the committee to talk about one of his agency’s specific missions: community revitalization, which includes the rehabilitation and reuse of vacant, blighted and abandoned properties.
Among the KHC revitalization projects reported to the committee by King and KHC Deputy Executive Directors Lisa Beran and Jeremy Ratliff were the Scholar House program (which provides affordable housing for single parents who are full-time students until they finish their higher education), the 14-site Recovery Kentucky residential substance abuse program, and three projects in Somerset, Springfield and Owsley County in which KHC partnered with state agencies and local cities and counties to replace or renovate blighted property, King said.
In Somerset, six dilapidated single-family homes were demolished and rebuilt using federal community block grant funds and HOME investment partnership funds with KHC’s help, said Beran. Priority for the homes was given to low-income, elderly and disabled persons, she reported to the committee.
“The total economic impact of not only finishing those structures but strengthening the community in terms of that economic power was $719,000,” Beran said.
In downtown Springfield, KHC partnered with the Department of Local Government to create seven one- and two-bedroom rental apartments for senior citizens by rehabilitating an historic building into the Robertson Apartments, said Beran. The total economic impact of that project totals over $1.4 million, she said.
Similar local success was achieved in Owsley County where Beran said various funding sources were used to build 21 houses total in the Maple Lick and Milltown subdivisions. The average income for each of the households, Beran said, was $14,879.
“Looking at the overall impact… (the development) leveraged a total economic impact of $655,000 for Owsley County. So, again, it creates those necessary and needed affordable housing units for the residents, but also then brings the economic impact to the particular jurisdiction,” she said.
In reference to Scholar House—which has locations in most every region of the state—Local Government Committee Vice Chair Rep. Rob Rothenburger, R-Shelbyville, asked King and his colleagues the maximum length of stay for residents.
“As long as they’re meeting their requirements, they can stay until they’ve finished their education,” said King.
Rothenburger commented on the success of affordable housing programs in his county, where KHC partnered with a local developer to build affordable senior citizen housing. It only took three weeks for the first phase of 42 completed units to be claimed by seniors, he said.
“I want to tell you how successful that program is and how much our seniors in Kentucky appreciate that because now, they don’t have to make a choice of whether they’re going to pay rent, utilities, or medicine payments each month,” Rothenburger said. “They can move in, and they can relax and enjoy life.”