Plans for low-income housing in Valparaiso are moving forward on a smaller scale after the City Council, in a split vote, turned down rezoning and donating city-owned land for the project.
Representatives from Housing Opportunities and Porter-Starke Services said the need for low-income housing, particularly in light of a recent study that showed the number of people in Valparaiso living in poverty or on its brink is on the upswing, is still needed, despite the setback.
“(The study) shows 40 percent of the people who live in Valparaiso are either the working poor or living in poverty and that is who this project was going to help,” said Caroline Shook, executive director of Housing Opportunities, which operates a homeless shelter and offers transitional and low-income housing.
She noted statistics from a 2014 report called “ALICE in Porter County,” an acronym for “asset limited, income constrained, employed.” Those considered “ALICE” make more than the poverty level but still don’t have enough to get by.
According to a “point in time” count of the homeless population in Porter County a few years ago, the county had at least 154 adults and 75 children who lacked housing, said Elliott Miller, director of marketing and development for Porter-Starke, which provides mental health services.
Around the time of the City Council vote, Miller said Porter-Starke reached out to two other non-profits to see how many people between the three agencies could benefit if the project went forward as originally planned; 150 people could have moved into the apartments.
“I think we’re going to continue to look at options,” he said. “There certainly is a need.”
Aurora View Apartment Homes will proceed with fewer units than originally planned, with new units on property on Vale Park Road that does not need to be rezoned, Shook said. Housing Opportunities and Porter-Starke have an option to buy property at 1504 Vale Park Road, the site of an empty house.
“We re-did the project a little bit and took the city lot out so that’s no longer part of it,” Shook said.
The two non-profits are under the gun to meet a Monday grant deadline with the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority for federal tax credits. They will find out in February if they receive that grant, Shook said, and if so, can apply for a second grant through a federal home loan bank for additional funding.
The total in grants would be $6 million, she said, and if all goes as planned, construction could begin on the project in August. The original grant request was for around $11 million.
While Mayor Jon Costas supported the project during an Oct. 24 council meeting for rezoning and donating a city-owned parking lot block between Valparaiso Street and Valley Drive, the City Council voted 4-3 along party lines against the move.
Neighbors and the owner of a nearby Montessori school expressed concerns about the clientele of the proposed apartment complex and their property values.
Shook said she was disheartened by the comments she heard at the meeting.
“Every day we see people who need housing and housing is very unaffordable in Valparaiso,” she said.
The project encompasses 15 units split between three buildings already owned by Porter-Starke along Valparaiso Street just south of the post office. The residents there will remain, Shook said, and those buildings, which are 30 years old, will be rehabilitated.
“They’re going to get a major facelift,” she said.
The city-owned lot would have had two buildings with a total of 31 units, and the property on Vale Park was going to have three town homes. Instead, that property will have eight town homes, Shook said, and they will be permanent supportive housing for the homeless, with income-based rent.
“It needs no rezoning, no density variances, no nothing,” she said.
But the apartments also won’t serve nearly as many families.
“Probably the biggest change is that under the original project, we were gong to have 49 units, with 15 existing, so there would be a net gain of 34 units. Now it’s eight units. That’s huge,” she said.
Amy Lavalley is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
