Columbia announces ARPA survey, revealing affordable housing is top community need
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Results are in for a survey from The Columbia/Boone County Health and Human Services and the city, seeking feedback on how to spend the city's COVID-19 relief funding to address inequalities exposed by the pandemic.
Officials say 4,470 people completed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) survey.
The city has $12.6 million left of the $25.2 million to address inequalities and areas of need exposed by the pandemic. The goal is for the survey to reach as many people as possible so they can really narrow down what areas of need are most important to fund.
The $12.6 million is being used for homelessness, community violence, behavioral crisis care mental health services, and workforce development.
According to the survey, the top priorities for ARPA spending include:
- Funding to help community members access health services, including mental health
- Investments in affordable housing
- Premium Pay for workers
- Funding Services for Homeless Residents
- Assistance to Households (Food, Utility, Rental or Cash Assistance)
The Columbia Housing Authority, the community's largest affordable housing provider, is working with other community providers to create a center to address affordable housing, transitional housing and the lack of permanent homeless shelter in the city. The hope is for the city to allocate funds for the project once that planning process is complete.
Randy Cole, CEO of the Columbia Housing Authority said the need for affordable housing support is great right now.
"We see the need every day in our office. We see upwards of 200 people come into our office per week as walk-ins needing assistance and we see upwards of 500 calls a week. We have 1200 households on our waitlist right now," Cole said.
Cole said the CHA is working to expand its footprint and maintain its affordable housing.
"I think this could be a great opportunity to leverage additional dollars in our community. Any ARPA dollars or other grant dollars we receive would go to benefiting low-income populations that we have." Cole said. "We have the additional staff to take on these projects and dollar for dollar those funds would go to helping someone in need."
Cole said a large portion of the people needing CHA assistance qualify for being homeless.
"The more we can put into affordable housing the more we can get people off the streets and into affordable housing," Cole said.
The Voluntary Action Center is one of the providers working to address homelessness with CHA. VAC provides basic needs on an immediate basis to Boone County residents that are at or below the 200 percent of the poverty level.
Ed Stansberry, Executive Director of VAC said the top basic needs they are providing for people is money for gas, their emergency food pantry, and fans and air conditioners.
Stansberry said their numbers for gas needs have tripled from this time last year, and the numbers for the food pantry have more than doubled from this time last year.
"We haven't seen numbers this low since 2010, which was the last recession. What we've discovered is that those that are at the lowest end of the income spectrum are usually hit hardest first and it takes them the longest to recover," Stansberry said.
VAC is pursuing ARPA funds for its Opportunity Campus, an all-encompassing homeless service facility.
The city council will meet at its regular meeting on July 18, and discuss the results.
The next step will be for the health department and city to identify the gaps in the survey data and then create focus groups.
There will be 10 focus groups seven will be in person and three on zoom. The groups will include trusted members of the community that are familiar with an area of need, plus those most impacted.
