January 31, 2025
The State of Kansas and the Dane G. Hansen Foundation, sharing a desire to enhance housing opportunities in rural Northwest Kansas, recently established a roadmap to effectively assist with housing development. This joint venture, known as “Kansas Housing Cooperative” (KHC), was awarded $4 million when the Kansas Legislature passed a budget for fiscal year 2025, which began in July, as part of a total provision to transfer $7.3 million from special revenue funds to the Northwest Kansas Housing Economic Development Fund. The KHC program will target a cumulative fund of $12,000,000 to be established and distributed over a four year period — with the State of Kansas, the Dane G. Hansen Foundation, and local investment each contributing $4 million. With a total housing investment of $12M, the KHC program aims to incentivize development of approximately 160 single family homes and 85 apartments across Northwest Kansas. For the Eastern Colorado Bank Giving Back grant, Wallace County Community Development respectively requests $10,000 to serve as local investment for the KHC program, to effectively assist in incentivizing new home construction in Wallace County.
Wallace County Community Development is focused on projects and activities that promote improvement and positive change for the residents and businesses of Wallace County, Kansas, providing a wide range of resources and services to all communities in Wallace County.
Wallace County Community Development, while housed within the local county government, currently does not have a direct allocation for project funding, and therefore must seek out grant funding and other sources to accomplish specific projects as the arise. WCCD will benefit from the sponsorship
by having funds ready for the Kansas Housing Cooperative program.
The local investment of $10,000 being request in the application will provide enough match to incentivize the build of approximately one single family home or two apartments in Wallace County through the KHC program. The Kansas Housing Cooperative opportunity has several beneficial outcomes, going far beyond just providing housing. It provides for the creation of personal wealth (equity build up through homeownership) and community wealth (tax base). For rural communities to survive they need to continually build their tax base, so the property tax burden does not fall on only a few residents. Single family homeownership is a stabilizing force for rural communities.
