This year marks the first time that the state of Iowa has participated in the Corporation for Supportive Housing’s (CSH) institute.
Seven teams across the state, including two Davenport-based groups, were invited to take part in Iowa’s inaugural Supportive Housing Institute.
CSH is a national leader in supportive housing and hosts development programs nationwide. The nonprofit organization, headquartered in New York City, partnered with the Iowa Finance Authority (IFA) to conduct a six-month training series.
Local social services nonprofit Humility Homes and Services is on a team with Gratus Development, a solo development group based in Indiana.
Chief Executive Officer Ashley Velez said their group is working on developing a pitch for an 11-unit supportive housing program in Davenport, in efforts to provide housing to the hundreds of individuals without shelter who wait on Humility’s coordinated entry list.
“There’s generally about 300 households sitting on this list every week, and so even just being able to create 11, that’s 11 more opportunities for someone to be able to receive holistic services," Velez said.
Velez said her organization first applied to the IFA in December before being accepted into the program in January, beginning sessions in March. At the end of July and on the final day of the institute, she said all of the groups will get the chance to share their ideas in a “Shark-Tank” style pitch, with a chance to receive tax credit through the IFA or development funding.
“Since we’ll have already gone through their supportive housing institute, we would get like preference points of saying, ‘They know what they’re doing. They’ve been through the training,' you know," Velez said. "'They’re the best provider in the state to be doing this.'”
CSH’s Upper Midwest Director Amy Stetzel said one of the main goals of the institute is to strengthen the teams’ developmental plans, but also to share their individual goals within communities and grow connections with housing officials who can help them achieve these goals.
While Stetzel said the exact funding sources present at the final pitch are still being finalized, she expects to see some federal funding sources, such as the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Continuum of Care Program coordinators.
“Whether that’s the folks from IFA to our local housing trust fund representatives across the state to our federal home loan bank partners to CSH loan partners and have these teams pitch their ideas to those funders,” Stetzel said.
Vera French is also on a team, along with the Salvation Army-QCFS and Quad Cities Housing Council. Executive Director of Vera French Housing Development Stacy Kiser said the teams have met many speakers and other housing professionals throughout the training.
In developing affordable housing, Kiser said the whole point is to come away from the project with no debt. This has been a key learning point throughout the sessions, she said.
“It’s writing grants, applying for certain funding from the state, so you’re really doing all that you can to put all the funding sources," Kiser said. "And that’s another thing we’ve talked about in our training, about putting funding sources together to ensure that you can build it in the most affordable way possible.”
The institute will end in late July. For more information, visit IFA’s website.