COUNCIL DECIDES NOT TO PURSUE HUD FUNDS

The Cape Girardeau City Council Monday decided not to seek funds this year for up to 60 federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) low-income housing units.

Mayor Gene Rhodes said at the May 6 City Council meeting that HUD money was available to the city if it would appoint a Public Housing Authority and apply for the funds prior to May 26.

The item was placed on the agenda for Monday's meeting, where council members said they thought the fast-approaching deadline wouldn't allow the city adequate consideration of whether a housing authority should be appointed.

"I think there's a lot more here than meets the eye, pro or con," said Council Member Mary Wulfers.

Wulfers has advocated public housing and low-income housing assistance in Cape Girardeau. But she said Monday that the issue is too complicated to rush into without first considering all consequences.

City Manager J. Ronald Fischer said that following the May 6 meeting, Cape Girardeau Building Code Inspector Steve Williams attended a St. Louis meeting with HUD representatives to seek information on securing 1991 federal housing funds.

Fischer said the city already has a law that permits the council to appoint a housing authority. But he said HUD officials told Williams that in order to get federal funds this year, the authority needed to be in place and apply for the money by the May 26 deadline.

Fischer said it's likely more funds will be available through next year's HUD program, which the council might want to pursue in conjunction with the new Mississippi River bridge project.

Hilary Schmittzehe, director of VIP Industries who owns several HUD-funded housing units for handicapped residents in Cape Girardeau, said the program would "be ideal" to replace the 130 homes that will be demolished as part of the bridge route project.

The bridge project, and an arterial bridge route through the city's south side is slated to be completed in four to six years.

Schmittzehe said HUD officials also have told him Cape Girardeau likely would receive the federal funds.

"I think it's a good opportunity," he said. "The windows open and close, and I think the opportunity is there now."

Schmittzehe said the city could get funding for 60 units this year, valued at $60,000 to $80,000. The city would have three years to build the units with the 1991 funds, he added.

"I see it as a no-lose situation. and I do know with the attitude at HUD, Cape wouldn't be any problem," he said.

But Fischer questioned whether Cape Girardeau citizens wanted HUD housing. Although the program wouldn't initially require local funds, the city would pay most of the program's maintenance and administration costs.

"I'm not taking issue with the need (for low-income housing)," Fischer said. "But with the history of how this has gone over in this community in the past, I don't know if this council is ready tonight to appoint a committee."

The city manager said that unless the council was committed to the idea of federally funded housing, it shouldn't appoint an authority and apply for the funds, or "we'd be looking at a long dry spell before we'd be considered again."

Schmittzehe said the city now is at the "tail end" of just such a dry spell as a result of resident opposition to a HUD program proposed a few years ago.

"There's been some bad feelings between HUD and Cape," he said. "But HUD is interested now to see if the city's interested again."

Schmittzehe said he would opposed congregate, "high-rise" public housing units, but encouraged the city to seek funds for individual, single-family homes.

"I would oppose anything but a single housing unit, because if you have a problem, you have it isolated," he said. "I also would move them around and have a strict housing authority to administer this program."

The council late last year considered the issue of how to address low-income housing needs in Cape Girardeau and agreed to a three-phased plan that included:

Adoption of a minimum property maintenance code

Application to the Missouri Community Block Grant Development program, which provides funds for rehabilitation of homes in low-income neighborhoods.

Increased efforts to secure local funds for housing assistance.

City officials said at the time that the three-phase approach would be more effective than applying for federal public housing. More than 200 houses already are in housing assistance programs in Cape Girardeau, none of them federally subsidized.

Council Member Hugh White said Monday that the council agreed last year that federal housing was something the city wasn't yet prepared to pursue.

"We had this option before us in 1990 and we opted at that time to not pursue it," he said. "We would have to consider something that's not only not the direction we wanted to take a year ago, it's also a decision we don't know if we have a mandate from the public on."