![]() In an ongoing bid to continually increase its affordable housing stock, the City of El Paso is offering significant financing to the developers of such projects. The city’s Department of Community and Human Development says financing of up to $1 million per project may be available for either building or rehabilitating any structure that may be used for affordable rental housing. The program additionally includes a city-sponsored workshop designed to go over the details of the initiative that will be hosted later this month. To be eligible to receive funding, applicants must be first certified as a community housing development organization by the City of El Paso. The funding will then be awarded through a competitive process that weighs such matters as the feasibility and quality of the proposed housing project. City efforts to make affordable housing more available comes in the wake of a January report released by the website Realtor.com, which listed larger El Paso as the third best market for affordable homes in the country. The site specifically added that El Paso is primed to be a major real estate hot market for the rest of 2019 due to its current abundance of affordable homes and a continuing home construction boom. The application deadline for El Paso’s affordable rental housing financing program is July 18. By Garry Boulard
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![]() Legislation has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives to provide funding assistance for septic tank conversion projects across the country. Septic tank systems provide wastewater treatment for homeowners across the country. But, as documented by the Environmental Protection Agency, individual septic systems can often negatively impact drinking water wells and surface water bodies. Although a number of parasitic diseases and increased levels of nitrogens can flow into nearby lakes and streams from such systems, they are not generally regulated by the federal Clean Water Act. A majority of the estimated 21 million household septic systems in the U.S. are mostly located in rural or suburban areas not served by a centralized public sewer system. The proposed Local Water Protection Act, which has been unanimously approved by the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, will provide funding for the upgrading of those systems. Introduced by Minnesota Representative Angie Craig and Brian Mast of Florida, the legislation more generally authorizes funding for what is known as “nonpoint source management grants.” Nonpoint source water pollution includes septic system seepage, the runoff from farms due to sediments and fertilizers from fields, toxins from abandoned mines, and the oils and heavy metals from roads. All of these ingredients can seep into lakes, rivers and other bodies of water. As introduced, the legislation will more than double federal support for state-run nonpoint pollution management programs from the current $70 million a year to $200 million a year every year between 2020 and 2014. The legislation is now on its way to the full House. By Garry Boulard ![]() Plans are rapidly moving forward, after years of delays and discussion, for the construction of a new veterans home on the northeast side of Flagstaff. The project is slated to go up on an eight-acre site off of the McMillan Mesa near the Coconino High School. Funding for the new facility, which will house 60 beds, incudes $10 million that was approved by the State of Arizona some three years ago. Last spring the federal Department of Veteran Affairs announced it was also kicking in $20 million to get the facility built. The project has long been pushed by Flagstaff Mayor Coral Evans who was instrumental in getting the City of Flagstaff to set aside the McMillan Mesa land needed for the facility. The new residential home will measure around 80,000 square feet and will include lobby space, a laundry room, gift shop, meditation room, and barber and beauty shop. Each resident room will be private and fully furnished. As planned, construction on the Flagstaff facility is expected to launch early this summer, with a completion date of early 2020. The announcement of a summer construction schedule for the Flagstaff project comes as work on a new Veterans Affairs Medical Center outpatient clinic has already started in Phoenix. By Garry Boulard ![]() More than $13.5 billion in grant funding has been made available for a program designed to help homeless veterans re-enter the nation’s workforce. The money is coming through the federal Department of Labor’s Veterans’ Employment and Training Service, and is expected to see the awarding of individual grants ranging in size from $100,000 to $500,000. What is called the Homeless Veterans’ Reintegration Program is designed to not only find employment for homeless veterans, but meaningful employment. That means, according to the official government description of the program, “open and competitive paid employment, in line with the homeless veteran’s aspirations, talents, and abilities.” The description adds that such employment should also provide “a family sustaining wage” or “the minimum income necessary for a worker to meet his or her basic financial needs.” The program is the only one of its kind on the national level and additionally provides placement services, job training, and counseling. The announcement of the program’s funding comes in the wake of a Labor Department report showing that the current unemployment rate for U.S. veterans has reached its lowest point, at 3.8 percent, in nearly two decades. That report also reveals that as of last year there were more than 19.2 million veterans in the U.S., accounting for 8 percent of the larger adult population. The Labor Department’s homeless veterans employment initiative comes as construction industry leaders are increasingly reaching out to veterans to fill needed jobs. Noting that roughly 250,000 people leave military service every year, the website Construction Dive reports: “As construction continues to grapple with a chronic workforce shortage, the number of new veterans alone represent enormous potential for the construction industry.” By Garry Boulard ![]() Life Time Fitness Inc., which already has five gym locations in metropolitan Phoenix, has announced plans to build a new facility on the north side of Peoria. The Chanhassen, Minnesota-based company has purchased for $2.5 million a three-acre site at the corner of 67th Avenue and Happy Valley Road The company, feeding into an ongoing demand for more fitness facility choices, is also building a new location in the upscale Biltmore Fashion Park in Phoenix. Members of the Peoria City Council last October approved Life Time’s proposal to build the new facility, which will include three floors housing everything from workout areas to basketball courts and swimming pools. The 120,000 square-foot structure will also feature a spa, café, and laundry facilities. Launched in 1992, Life Time Fitness has more than 150 locations in the U.S. and Canada. Those locations, with a strong presence in the Midwest and Texas, are in both newly-constructed structures as well as existing facilities that the company has re-purposed. In the last two decades Life Time has built and remodeled just under 10 million square feet of facility space. By Garry Boulard ![]() Albuquerque is in line to receive around $985,000 for the construction of a centralized homeless shelter that will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The money is part of a much larger $64 million in capital outlay funding approved during the 2019 session of the New Mexico State Legislature. Altogether, Albuquerque is getting just under $64 million in state funding for a variety of capital outlay projects signed off on by lawmakers. The new shelter, which will be built on the west side of Albuquerque, is expected to cost around $28 million to build. Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller has been pushing for the construction of the shelter as part of an energetic effort to address homelessness in the city. Earlier reports have indicated that at any given time there may be as many as 8,000 homeless people in the city. As envisioned, the proposed facility would provide housing for men, women, and children, and would also offer on-site counseling and other support services. Earlier this year, the Mayor announced the creation of a homeless advisory council made up of members from faith-based groups, non-profits, the Native American community, and other partners, to study the homeless challenge. Keller has indicated that he would like to see placed on the general obligation bond ballot this coming November a proposal asking for $14 million for the shelter project, which would allow for its first phase construction. By Garry Boulard |
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