Covington Mayor Ron Washington is advocating against cuts at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, known more commonly as HUD.
“I want to talk about these cuts not as a partisan issue – the politics of this is almost irrelevant – but about the reality of the damage this will do to us,” Washington told attendees to Tuesday night’s city commission meeting.
Covington is a consortium city, meaning it automatically gets an allocation of federal funding every year. Most of those allocations come in the form of Community Development Development Block Grant, or CDBG, and HOME funding. These allocations are used to subsidize home repairs, affordable housing construction, literacy initiatives, sidewalk and infrastructure repair, park improvements and home-buyers’ assistance.
A study of housing in Northern Kentucky has revealed troubling trends for housing in the region, with the largest need being for “workforce housing” for households earning between $15 and $25 per hour, with monthly housing costs between $500 and $1,500. The region needs about 3,000 more housing units to provide for people within that income range, according to the study. The demand for one- to two-bedroom rentals and owned properties consistently exceeds their supply, while supply for three and four-bedroom properties consistently exceeds demand. The study suggests that the region needs to build 6,650 housing units to support economic development in the next five years, which equates to 1,330 units per year. Read more here.
Understanding NKY’s housing shortage
Notably, HOME funding pays for forgivable loans to qualifying families for help in purchasing a house both in Covington and in other cities throughout the region: Florence, Independence, Ludlow, Erlanger, Bellevue, Dayton and Newport.
“There is certainly waste in government,” Washington said, “but I ask the powers in Washington to use a scalpel, not a hatchet. Your broken furnace or leaking roof doesn’t care whether you’re conservative or liberal or libertarian or anything in between. You feel the cold just the same, and your roof leaks just the same. Our residents in need of housing don’t feel any more or less anxiety depending on whether they have a ‘D’ or an ‘R’ or an ‘I’ behind their name. And our parks don’t make you produce your voting registration to walk your dog or let your kids swim or play soccer.”
The city is encouraging residents to contact their elected members of Congress. They point to the National Community Development Association, which has received “credible intelligence,” according to its website, that the DOGE plan for HUD’s Office of Community Planning and Development calls for an 84% staff cut. The association has created a form letter that people can use to appeal to their elected officials against cuts. They also cite the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials as sources of advice for contacting electing officials.
“This isn’t about politics, but about people,” Washington said.
You can watch the mayor’s full statement at the Telecommunications Board of Northern Kentucky’s website. Washington begins his statement around the 12:50 time stamp.