$1 million grant a significant step forward on housing front

“If you build it, they will come.”
Kevin Costner’s classic line from the “Field of Dreams” movie has a truthful ring to it in terms of local housing. A red-hot real estate market and recent housing study confirm what locals already know, and that is that there simply aren’t enough houses in Aurora to meet the community’s growing needs for potential residents and workers. If more affordable houses are built, people will be lined up to buy them. It’s just that simple.
“Affordable” is the key phrase in that equation, which is what makes last week’s announcement of a $1 million Rural Workforce Housing grant a very big deal indeed. Combined with $1 million in pledged matching funds, this community will soon have a $2 million revolving loan fund available to help reduce expensive infrastructure costs for housing projects well into the future.
It’s impossible to overstate the impact this could have on Aurora and Hamilton County. Providing more townhomes and single-family dwellings is a critical step that could very well create a domino effect of positives. More homes means more residents to support local businesses; more people to fill available jobs; more students in our schools; and a broader tax base foundation on which to build and support all of the above.
The Aurora Housing Development Corporation put a great deal of time and effort into the Workforce Housing Fund application and that volunteer group deserves the community’s thanks. Truth be told it was a team effort. Several volunteers helped do the homework necessary to put a package together that earned the state’s approval, with local businesses, individuals and foundations offering to ante up support money in the form of a matching grant. That’s a formula that’s been used many, many times before in this community, with donated dollars reflecting a “skin in the game” level of local commitment that makes all the difference in a project’s ultimate success.
Much work remains to put a dent in the need for local housing, but this is a significant step in the right direction. 
Kurt Johnson