Residents across eight Northern Kentucky cities will be able to weigh in this week on how federal housing funds will be spent in the region.
The process through the Northern Kentucky Home Investment Partnerships is being led by the city of Covington, but will also affect people living in Erlanger, Ludlow, Independence, Florence, Newport, Bellevue and Dayton.
After an initial round of public input, officials identified four priorities for this year’s budget plan: affordable housing; public facilities and infrastructure improvements; neighborhood and community services; and business and economic development.
“We've identified priorities mostly around housing and community development, and those become actionable activities in the plan,” said Jeremy Wallace, federal grants manager for Covington.
Affordable housing is perhaps the most pressing issue, Wallace said. In the first survey, people asked how the city plans to build new housing and preserve existing ones. Residents also brought up other housing issues.
“We have a lot of aging housing stock and aging residents in the city that want to stay here,” Wallace said. “We need to work on aging-in-place and helping people keep their homes affordable.”
Covington’s plan also says results from last year showed positive progress, including building more houses and repairing a number of local streets. But it also noted the money could be used in a more strategic manner by coordinating it with other investments.
“For example, we might get a grant from the Department of Transportation to do a streetscape improvement,” Wallace said. “And if that's the case, then maybe we'll also invest some of our HUD money in the same area or the same neighborhood, to have a bigger impact.”
Last year, Covington used funds from HOME, an affordable-housing-specific grant, and other federal grants to finance nonprofit housing development, such as the Community Housing Development Organization, that renovates existing houses into affordable units.
“Developers typically shy away from affordable housing because they're not going to make any money on them,” Wallace said. “But if we can help with the overall financing stack, they can still make a little money and then we can have a unit that can actually be affordable.”
To reach this year’s top four priority needs, the plan sets nine goals:
- expand homeownership opportunities
- increase affordable housing units
- improve existing owner-occupied housing
- improve streets, sidewalks and public facilities
- improve parks and recreational facilities
- reduce and prevent crime
- provide recreation and education opportunities
- increase jobs through economic development
- reduce blighted conditions
To pinpoint more actionable goals, the grant administrators will meet with different departments that do on-the-ground work in these areas throughout the year.
“They may be devising the project, and we may just be providing the funding,” Wallace said.
Covington must coordinate a period for public comment before submitting a plan to the federal government for approval. The city will hold a public hearing on the plan during Tuesday’s Board of Commissioner's meeting, but residents can also email or call Wallace to submit feedback until May 25.
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