Simplified: City Council this week approved funding to create an online Housing Hub to make it easier for low-income folks to connect with affordable housing options through the help of case workers.
Why it matters
- There’s a tremendous amount of paperwork required to apply for subsidized housing, Housing Development Manager Logan Penfield said, and often, the complexity of applications leads to lots of back and forth between case workers, housing navigators and the people they’re trying to find housing for.
- Typically, subsidized apartments have a higher vacancy rate, Community Housing Coordinator Breanna White said. That's in part because the process to get people into those units is time-consuming, but also because it can be tough to find which options are even available.
- This new Housing Hub – which, as Councilor Rich Merkouris noted Tuesday night, is a concept the city's been talking about for several years – aims to help simplify the process of navigating various affordable housing options for people who make 60% or less of the area median income (about $63,000 per year for a family of four).
"I think it’s just really aiming to eliminate the barriers that property managers are experiencing in terms of incomplete applications or people applying for units that aren't appropriate for them," White said. "The aim of the hub is to streamline that process."
How does it work?
The new Housing Hub will simplify the application process by aggregating all the info needed from various property, so folks can figure out all the answers and documentation they need in one spot.
- Then, the website will then filter that information into the appropriate application forms and formats.
"The point is you only have to fill out one application instead of six," Penfield said.
To start, the city has lined up partnerships with Lloyd Companies and Costello Companies, two of the largest providers of subsidized housing in the city. Once a person is approved or qualified for affordable housing units, they'll be able to easily browse the options available to them.
"We're hoping this is a navigation tool like Zillow, but it's just going to be subsidized units," Penfield said.
What happens next?
Sioux Falls City Council approved a $118,000 contract with local web developer Omnitech.
With that approval, the city will work with Omnitech to build the website from scratch. It’s estimated to take eight months to build, and then White said the first year is essentially a pilot program.
