The Covington Board of Commissioners voted Tuesday night to allocate roughly $474,000 in federal grant money towards affordable housing rehab and construction.
The votes come as part of the city’s annual federal grant cycle. As an entitlement city, Covington automatically gets a certain amount of federal grant funding every year, some of which can be used for housing.
The funding is split into two portions. The first is $150,000 of Community Development Block Grant, or CDGB, funding for rehabbing the following five rental addresses on Emery Drive:
- 980 Emery Drive
- 990 Emery Drive
- 1010-1014 Emery Drive
- 1020 Emery Drive
That money will be granted to an LLC subsidiary of Neighborhood Investment Partners called Emery Drive, LLC. Neighborhood Investment Partners is a nonprofit partner of the city, which manages and maintains affordable housing in the community. Covington’s Neighborhood Services Department Director Brandon Holmes is also the head of Neighborhood Investment Partners. “The scope of work includes new asphalt shingle roofing systems, new decking on rear porches and new handrails,” according to city documents.
The second segment will go to Housing Opportunities of Northern Kentucky, known more commonly as HONK. HONK is a nonprofit that builds affordable housing and trains new homeowners to manage a household through its lease-to-own pipeline. The organization has previously received federal funding to support its projects. HONK will receive $323,653 in federal HOME funds to build a single property on 1323 Russell Street, which is currently vacant. HONK’s Executive Director David Hastings told the board the organization builds between one and two houses a year as a city fund recipient.
A potential buyer for the new HONK-constructed property may be eligible for a low-interest, forgivable loan from the city’s grants program. Those loans, aimed at covering down payment and closing costs for new homeowners, were recently expanded to be worth up to $15,000, depending on the applicant. Read more about that program here.
