Area housing officials waiting on Congress
Seek details about uses for funding from American Jobs Plan
Housing advocates in Lake and Porter counties are curious to see how the housing proposals in President Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan plays out in their communities.
The proposals, part of a broader, $2.3 trillion investment in infrastructure, education, drinking water and other critical needs across the country, include $213 billion to address the affordable housing crisis.
The plan must still be voted on by Congress where Republicans recently countered with a plan calling for $568 billion.
The details include producing, preserving and retrofitting more than 1 million affordable, accessible and energy efficient housing units; building and rehabilitating more than 500,000 homes for lowand middle-income homebuyers, with the offer of tax credits; eliminating exclusionary zoning and harmful land use policies; addressing long-standing public housing capital needs; and using union trade workers to upgrade homes and businesses to save families money.
“The confusing part is how that trickles down to the local level,”
said Jordan Stanfill, CEO of Valparaiso-based Housing Opportunities, which offers emergency shelter and transitional housing and related services in Porter and LaPorte counties.
The agency has about 140 households between the two counties on a waiting list for housing, he added. “If you bring affordable housing in, you shorten that wait list.”
He’s also interested to see how zoning will be incentivized, since those laws vary by state.
Still, a recent study of Valparaiso’s housing stock, which notes that more than 3,300 of the city’s households are “cost-burdened” and paying over 30% of their income toward housing, dovetails with what the American Jobs Plan calls for and what the needs are,
Stanfill said.
“Just how those two pair is the unknown” when it comes to putting the plans into action, he said.
The needs in housing, said Tim Brown, director of the Lake County Economic Development Department, are easier to ascertain than what the American Jobs Plan contains “because nobody really knows. That’s what’s most frustrating.”
Preliminarily, his department is receiving around $2.2 million for home program funds. At the end of last year, Brown’s department received $14.5 million from the U.S. Department of Treasury to help those behind in rent and utilities. Those funds are available to people with up to 80% of the average median income in the county.
“That program is up and running and going. We’re spending that money now, but it provided no mortgage assistance so we believe the $2.2 million would be for homeowners with mortgages that qualify. However, we don’t know if that 80% will apply or not,” he said, adding his department is lacking details on how the new money can be spent. “We all are, across the board. It’s not unusual.”
He expects the most recent funds to be available in June. Since March of last year, Brown’s department will have received $18.5 million in COVID-19 relief and other assistance through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act.
“That’s nine times our annual budget. It’s still an awful lot of funds,” Brown said, adding his department has amended its annual budget once and will have to do so again.
In Hammond, Owana Miller, director of the community develop - ment department there, said homeownership is the city’s top priority. The city’s Homebound Program offers down payment assistance for teachers, firefighters and police officers who meet income requirements.
“That is an excellent program that is flourishing on a yearly basis even in the pandemic,” she said.
With a new round of funding from the federal government, the city is addressing not only the needs of homebuyers but renters who may be facing layoffs and other challenges, “those COVID situations that nobody knew were coming,” she said.
Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. wants to make sure renters are protected, Miller said, and a number of landlords are working with her office in that program because city officials don’t want to see people living in homeless shelters.
The program has 75 to 100 applicants and assistance was extended from three months, to six months, and is now up to a year.
Gabriel’s Horn in Portage Township provides emergency shelter to a small number of women and children.
“Right now, we’re just having a difficult time getting our residents stable and getting them stable income,” said Monica Hammond, the shelter’s executive director.
The shelter provides assistance for six months, offering women services or connecting them with other agencies that can, including Housing Opportunities. Gabriel’s Horn helps women find employment if they aren’t working, receive food stamps, and unemployment benefits if needed.
“We help them with all the red tape,” Hammond said. “We want them to feel safe and get settled.”
The shelter’s goal is for women to get jobs that provide four times a monthly rent, putting them above the threshold for being rent burdened.
“That’s what keeps them out of housing,” Hammond said, adding her agency’s goal is to help women find better jobs to meet housing income requirements rather than finding a cheaper place to live.
The challenges the shelter’s clients face include a lack of money for a down payment to rent an apartment, or the need for credit repair or a more extensive credit history.
“The women we serve fall in those gaps,” Hammond said. “It’ a lack of housing for a lot of individuals who would typically qualify for low-income housing or rapid housing.”