DES MOINES, Iowa — On April 5, the Polk County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to approve an investment of more than $15 million that'll go towards adding and improving affordable housing options in the county.
"Our goal for our ARPA funds is to help invest in system changes that will have an impact for years to come," said Angela Connolly, Chair of the Polk County Board of Supervisors.
The funding for today's announcement comes from the American Rescue Plan, signed by President Biden last year. The Board says that $15 million will go towards creating as many as 600 new units of affordable housing, with the goal being to focus on helping people below 30% of the county's median income.
"For a single individual, this is an income of $19,000 per year, and for a family of four, this is an income of 27,000 per year. Affordability for these income levels should be $480 to $685 per month, and these types of housing are really scarce in our community," Connolly said.
$12 million of the funding is going towards the conversion and construction of new housing projects. Meanwhile, $3 million will be used to establish a short-term loan program. The idea is to help nonprofits, or other local developers, fund their own developments before coastal developers with deeper pockets buy them up first.
"We have a lot of folks from both coasts that are coming in here and snapping up apartment buildings and hotels, and our developers are going to be competing with those folks, for a limited number of buildings," said Eric Burmeister, Executive Director of the Polk County Housing Trust Fund.
Although the announcement is a start towards addressing housing concerns in Polk County, there's still a long way to go. According to the 2021 National Low Income Housing gap report, Polk County is still short more than 10,000 units of affordable housing.
"We don't stand here today, and minimize what the Board of Supervisors has done. We will say and do say that the job is not done," Burmeister said.
In addition to the $15 million, an additional $150,000 will be used to start a two-year pilot program, hiring two community advocates to perform outreach to low-income communities, separate from any specific shelter or low-income service provider.
Polk County received a total of 95 million dollars from the American Rescue Plan. The board of Supervisors has identified four categories to spend the money on—affordable housing, water quality, economic well-being, and mental health.