AHDC awarded 2nd $1M grant

The Aurora Housing Development Corporation has done it again.
Two years after being awarded a $1 million Rural Workforce Housing grant to address the county’s housing needs, the AHDC learned Thursday that it is one of 27 recipients in a second round of RWH funding, adding another $1 million grant to the cause.
AHDC President Jannelle Seim said she was thrilled to hear the news, noting that the additional grant funds will help support housing efforts throughout the county, with a specific goal of targeting multi-unit housing needs in Aurora.
“This is the biggest housing effort that we’ve had in probably the last 25 years,” Seim said. “In the early 1990s, the founding members of AHDC put a lot of money and time into the community to build up the housing stock. I think this new effort will have a significant impact on our population, on our schools and it will just help people keep Aurora in the forefront of their mind when they hear of progressive communities.”
Seim reported visible progress based on the $1 million grant AHDC received in 2021, which required a $1 million local match that in effect created a $2 million revolving loan fund.
“With that money we have built over 20 units between Phillips, Hampton and Aurora,” Seim said. “That is going really well and most of them are selling as fast as we can build them, which is what we anticipated. It’s great when you are right, so we did it again. We applied for the 2022 round of funding, raised another $500,000 (in donations) and wrote a grant for a million bucks.”
Combined, the two grants and local match donation efforts have created a $3.5 million pool of resources devoted exclusively to address local housing needs.
Created by the Rural Workforce Housing Investment Act, which was signed into law by Gov. Pete Ricketts in 2017, the RWH is designed to help communities increase their supply of quality, affordable housing to accommodate a growing workforce. Last week’s announcement from the Nebraska Department of Economic Development listed 27 recipients, many involving local, county or regional economic development organizations. (See related chart for detailed listing.) Unlike the 2020 grants, which were awarded in 2021, this round involved a 2-to-1 match of locally donated funds, which sweetened the pot further still for applicants seeking resources to provide infrastructure and lower the cost of housing in any way possible.
Aurora Development Corporation Executive Director Kelsey Bergen, who was part of the team preparing the applications, spoke of the grant’s potential impact.
“Growth creates growth and we certainly see that on the housing side,” Bergen said. “For every house that we build that is the potential for at least two workers to come to our workforce.”
Doing some math based on the first round of RWH funds, Bergen said there is a potential to bring 132 additional workers to the area, “which is a huge impact for our businesses that are struggling to find people to work,” she said.
Gary Warren, another member of the AHDC committee, offered his perspective as well.
“After listening to (NPPD executive) Rick Nelson’s comments yesterday about how economic development these days is one leg of the stool in the recruitment of businesses (see related story on Page B12), another leg of the stool is putting things in place a community needs and housing is part of that,” Warren said. “I think our community has come to realize that we have to have housing, partly for the workers for the businesses and industry we have here, and partly to recognize that people are working remotely. We can literally recruit workers to our communities by having good housing. This additional money I think will be another big step in doing that.”

Apartments targeted
Warren also noted that one of the AHDC’s targeted goals for the second round of funding will be to build multi-unit rental properties, which a 2020 housing study confirmed as a glaring need.
“We need multi-unit rental properties to recruit more 20-to-35-year-olds to the community, so this should be a big step forward for us,” he said.
Seim agreed, noting that the funds will also to be used to support projects in smaller communities throughout the county. A majority of the 2022 grant will go toward an apartment project in Aurora, though Seim said AHDC will also continue to support projects in Phillips, as well as a single-family home planned in Hordville.
“Those funds are earmarked for some apartment complexes within Aurora because we really have a need,” Seim continued. “We haven’t built an apartment complex in the community since 1995, which is a long time ago. It’s in the 1900s if you ask my children, so we are really excited about this.”
Warren added that there are no final plans yet in place to build apartment units, though planning is well under way on several fronts.
“We’re working with three potential builders and three potential sites,” he said. “None of them are defined and confirmed at this point, but the good news is we have multiple sites and multiple builders that are willing to step forward and do this, so it should not be very long before people hear about phase one, phase two and phase three.”
While excited to share details of future building plans, Warren paused to give credit where credit is due, referring to local donors who saw an opportunity to help the community and responded generously, not once but twice.
“Hamilton County has been very fortunate to have the private capital contributed to the Aurora Development Corporation, which has enabled the purchase and development of land for prospective new businesses and industry,” he said. “That has been key to our job growth over the past several decades. Development of land for housing and recruiting builders is becoming equally important for the success of Hamilton County business growth, so we owe a big thank you to the foundations, businesses and individuals who have volunteered their dollars and their time to this housing effort so we can develop the housing we so desperately need throughout the county.”
Having a business development corporation and a housing development corporation with significant private sector dollars has and will continue to be a big plus for Hamilton County, Warren concluded.
“So many rural communities are reliant totally on tax dollars to make those types of developments happen and we are fortunate that we have a private sector which keeps our communities from having to put all of the burden of this effort on the taxpayer,” he said.