West Terre Haute, Ind. (WTHI) - The Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority announced a $13 million investment for nine rural communities in the Hoosier state. The funds are to be used to create or preserve affordable housing. One of those beneficiaries is the Providence Housing Corporation in West Terre Haute.
Providence Place is a corporation that provides affordable housing for those who need it in their community. Sister Jenny Howard and Director of the corporation Megan Miller spoke about where the funds will be going and how much this means to keep doing what they’re doing.
Sister Howard is the Board President for Providence Place and has been connected since 1996. She says this housing, located on 20 acres of land in West Terre Haute, is for limited income seniors. It’s made up of 64 apartments and 17 single family homes for first time homeowners.
They built this with their home funds and help from state and federal funds along the way.
“This is wonderful,” Sister Howard said, “We’ve been applying and hoping to receive this grant for a couple of years.”
“It’s a phenomenal feeling,” Miller agreed, “This is a huge win for us to be able to develop these additional units so we can provide more housing to more people that are in need.”
Both women also spoke about where they plan to use the money and a timetable to make more housing available for people in their community.
Miller says they will get nearly $500,000 from the federal home loan bank and more than $188,000 from this IHCDA Grant. They will use the money to complete their $1.4 million “phase 7” expansion and finish off building on their 20 acres of land
This will include eight additional two-bedroom apartments and expanding onto recently acquired land with two one-bedroom units.
This is for extremely low income individuals and something they’ve never done before.
Miller explained how eager they are to get going on this project.
“Based on previous projects—I’d say if we get a contract signed within the next 30 days or so, we’ll be advertising for general contractors right away,” she concluded, “We could actually have units ready probably by mid to late spring next year.”
