Affordable housing plan for Kane Co. still in holding pattern

A big increase in the homeless population and home foreclosures in Kane County this year had county staff keeping their fingers crossed that a project once hyped as the single most important federal stimulus project in the county would come to life.

It was July when Mercy Housing Lakefront pitched a plan to the county to use more than $73 million in federal stimulus money to build more than 1,700 affordable housing units in the area. The units were intended for sites in Aurora, Carpentersville, Elgin and St. Charles. But the project has yet to manifest in any construction or definitive planning as the nonprofit affordable housing developer has not received word on the status of its funding application.

County Board Chairman Karen McConnaughay hailed the project as having "the potential to create more jobs than anything we've looked at." In particular, the affordable housing units would be geared toward attracting and retaining the employees of one of the largest employers in the area - the Provena Hospital System.

Mercy Housing Lakefront officials could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Scott Berger, the county's Community Development Block Grant program manager, said the county is still anxiously awaiting the outcome of Mercy's application with the federal government.

Berger spent Wednesday summarizing the county's 2008 efforts to disburse $2.3 million in federal funds for housing and community development activities. The 2008 funding cycle for such projects ended May 31. A key goal of distributing the funds is to create housing and suitable living environments for low- and moderate-income families. Despite the county's efforts, statistics show the county might need the affordable housing Mercy plans to create.

Through May 31 the county saw a 12 percent increase in the homeless population in the 2008 program year. That increase doesn't include the Aurora and Elgin homeless populations since those cities receive separate grant money.

In addition, Berger said there were 99 new Kane County foreclosure suits filed in the past five days. On average, the county is seeing anywhere from 80 to 150 new foreclosures a week, he said. All told, there's been a 300 percent increase in foreclosure activity in the county the past four years.

"Obviously, people have lost their jobs," Berger said. "Homelessness continues to tick up. When people lose jobs, unemployment benefits run out eventually. At some point, what do you pay the rent with. Our program is aimed specifically at keeping people from ending up in a homeless shelter. The homeless shelter is the safety net. But if we can prevent it, we don't want people falling into that net."

The Mercy project could create housing that may help that homeless shelter safety net from sagging with the increased weight of more and more homeless families, Berger said.

"I'm hoping now that we hear something on that by the end of the year," Berger said of the status of the Mercy project. "We are anxiously awaiting to find out how the federal government is going to award those funds. We're very enthusiastic about the project."