HOUSING FOR FAMILIES HELPS ATTRACT INDUSTRY

Private and public agencies are working together in Cape Girardeau to help combat the shortage of affordable family housing.

A cooperative effort over the last two years between Cape Girardeau city government, the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce and eight private investors has resulted in the construction of 15 new three-bedroom homes throughout the city to accommodate low- and moderate-income families.

Tim Berry, president of Housing Missouri in St. Louis, said the purpose of the venture was to build affordable three-bedroom family properties, which are currently in high demand, throughout the city. The homes would also provide an incentive for businesses considering Cape Girardeau as a site for their industries.

"The reason the Chamber of Commerce is involved ... is that it's very difficult to attract manufacturing businesses to town if you have no place for people to live who are getting paid $8 to $10 an hour," Berry said. "This is also connected to the fact that a number of rental units were wiped out in the flood of '93."

The project was a joint effort by Housing Missouri, Union Electric, General American Life Insurance, Kansas City Life Insurance, St. Joseph Power and Light and Mark Twain, Roosevelt, Commerce and Boatmen's banks. The group invested more than $500,000 for the project, which began construction in the fall of 1996. The rest of the funding was provided by the Missouri Housing Commission, which provides low-interest loans for affordable housing projects.

The city and the chamber of commerce assisted the venture by helping the group locate affordable plots and developers to construct the homes.

Steve Williams, Cape Girardeau housing assistance coordinator, said the homes are not located in one centralized area, but are scattered throughout the city. This method, called scattered site housing, allows a group to obtain residential lots in established neighborhoods at a low price. This helps keep the housing affordable, he said, and also prevents people from labelling a neighborhood.

"There is a trend towards scattered site housing as opposed to targeted housing," Williams said. "There is such a stigma to low-income housing regardless of where it's located. You want to locate a lot of affordable units in neighborhoods you don't even know about, and that's the way it should be."

Berry said Housing Missouri actively seeks investors for affordable housing projects around the state. He said he has participated in projects for both families and the elderly, but more family projects will probably be needed in this area as towns work to attract industries to their area.

"Sikeston wants another project; we just finished one for the elderly there," Berry said. "If we can get more corporations to invest we'll keep doing them. We also need a local general partner and develop who wants to build them.

"I think we'll see more family projects as we go on. If you're a small town and you want to attract the kinds of business that help your tax base, elderly homes aren't going to do it."