Published on January 31st, 2022
TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) – Eight families will soon have access to affordable housing in downtown Alma.
It’s part of Governor Laura Kelly’s efforts to help rural communities.
Governor Laura Kelly announced Monday afternoon the state partnered with Frontier Property Management to help provide safe, affordable housing for families.
The historic Limerick building at 326 Missouri Street in Alma is being transformed into an apartment building for families.
“The ability to take a building like this and to be able to refurbish it for a different purpose, but one that will bring people into the downtown area and deals with lining the streets again and helping the main street retailers it all works together,” said Kansas Governor Laura Kelly.
Frontier Property Management agreed with Governor Kelly, “we’ve had a lot of people that are looking for rentals, but were not able to find safe and quality rentals,” said Tyler Holloman. ‘This is been a huge win for the community being able to have all of those people live here in these apartments.”
Frontier Property Management renovated the Limerick building with eight units with the help of Kansas Housing Resources Corporation.
“We discovered that a shortage of quality affordable housing is one of our state’s biggest barriers to growth and development in our rural communities and in urban communities,” Gov. Kelly emphasized.
Tyler Holloman says the state’s moderate-income housing program is geared toward working-class families, “without those programs we were not been able to renovate this building and turn it into much-needed housing for the community,” he said. “The guidelines are typically somewhere from 60 and 150% of the area median income, which serves a large population.”
“These are Kansans that we need in our communities. These are our police officers and our firefighters, there are our teachers, healthcare workers, and until we can come up with some solutions for how to help them manage the market, the housing market, only then can we bring real jobs in real economic success, real homes for our Kansans,” said Ryan Vincent, Kansas Housing Executive Director.
Plus, with additional funding, the building has a coworking space and a remodeled storefront.
“The state needs to be a good partner with our developers to encourage them because the need is there, they are interested in doing it, we just had to make it work for them,” said Gov. Kelly.
Families will be spending about $500 to $900 on rent. Alma residents start moving on Tuesday.
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