Housing Authority challenged by Sioux Villa's future

Balancing planned construction against the current needs of Sioux Villa residents caused Sidney's Housing Authority to reconsider their schedule and workload.

The board spent part of Wednesday's meeting discussing a proposed cut in their meeting time, but an increase in their commitment. Rather than gather once a month, debate centered around a bi-monthly meeting schedule, with a lot of work in between.

Executive Director of Sidney Housing Authority Nancy Bentley will need more time in the future, if the authority ever finds funding for a project to replace some or all the housing at Sioux Villa with new construction. Sioux Villa was built as temporary housing in the 1940s.

"I guess I don't see the advantage to going every other month," said board member Scott McDaniel.

Bentley assured the board she would send out a report via email on the off months.

"Once there is a funding opportunity, the time spent preparing for board meetings really needs to be spent putting the packages together and putting the funding together to do those development things," Bentley said.

The workload to plan these projects, especially when they include grants and government funding can be immense.

"We know to do Sioux Villa the city wants a fully planned development of the whole area," Bentley said. "So we don't have the luxury of going up and saying that we'd like to build 10 units at Sioux Villa. They want to see the whole plan, which is huge in cost and huge in time to design that entire area."

Bentley told the board how expensive simply having plans drawn out might become.

"You will pay for that plan quite dearly in terms of dollars, before you even know that you have a funding opportunity," Bentley said.

She is aware that plans are necessary, but is doubtful that the authority can come up with the funding to pay for them.

"I'm not opposed to that, I think an overall plan is great, but I think the detail that the city is going to look for in that plan, you're gonna spend a lot of money without knowing if you can do that plan," Bentley said.

She is most hopeful for funding from USDA Rural Development. The Department for Economic Development probably won't fund the entire project unless there is an extraordinary relocation plan for those who currently live in Sioux Villa.

"Where are you gonna put 73 households in Sidney?" Bentley asked.

McDaniel commented that tearing down the entirety of Sioux Villa at one time and replacing it doesn't seem practical.

Board member Robert Cortney suggested replacing the housing at Sioux Villa in incremental phases.

"It depends on the government too," said board member Tamara Nelsen. "How much they're looking to put into those programs, and how much not."

The board agreed that there was no way the authority could knock down the development all at once and replace it, especially because of the lack of available rentals in Sidney.

"That's important housing to the city of Sidney," Bentley said. "There are 73 families that depend on that."

The city is probably most concerned about proper zoning in the area and ensuring all plans are up to code, board member Roger Gallaway said.

"It's only common sense that the city would want to know what the whole thing is gonna look like before they let you start it," Nelsen said.

Bentley was planning to plot out small sections at a time because the housing authority would be using limited tax credit money and wouldn't be sure about funding for the entire project.

Just like any other apartment complex, Sioux Villa sometimes has issues with rent collections. Fifteen people still owed July rent as of last week.

"We are working with people," Bentley said. "We do have two or three pending evictions."

Bentley assured the board that she and her staff do everything possible to ensure they are housing reliable tenants. The authority does criminal background checks, looks at the national sex offender registry and speaks with local law enforcement and state patrol before offering an apartment to anyone. The authority also checks rental history.

"We don't house people who owe other landlords money," Bentley said. "You may be low income but if you're not paying your landlords, we won't house you either."

Cortney wondered if those already living at the facility are kicked out if they break the law.

"Yes," Bentley said. "Depending on the nature of the crime."

Sometimes, as an alternative, the resident is allowed to stay if he or she goes through rehab or participates in other programs.

At last month's meeting, residents who attended raised concerns about work orders being completed in a timely fashion. They were also worried that there was no one in the office at Sioux Villa the majority of the time. Bentley, mentioned that more work orders had been submitted in the last month.

"Hopefully people feel real comfortable talking to our staff," Bentley said.

Some residents at Sioux Villa had a hard time expressing their needs because of language barriers.

"Hopefully kind of the word of mouth will let them know that there's an interpreter available and that will kind of increase the level of their confidence in us," Nelsen said.

In response to resident concern, the housing authority plans to hire a new maintenance person during its new fiscal year which starts in October.

"I feel like our maintenance staff do a good job, but they are stretched right now," Bentley said.

The authority has already hired a new office worker who will split time between Sioux Villa and Western Heritage.