The City of Henderson received a matching grant of $200,000 from the Southeast Nebraska Development District (SENDD), which will be used to develop housing. The City will have $400,000 to be used towards building more housing.
“It’s a $200,000 investment from the city to receive this grant through the state’s Rural Workforce Housing Fund (RWHF),” said Henderson’s city clerk Connie Brown. “We will be utilizing SENDD to facilitate the funds with four other entities, including Thayer County, Falls City, Syracuse, and Nebraska City.”
With the upcoming development of the West addition and other available lots for building in the Providence Subdivision, the City decided to apply for this competitive grant in March, according to Brown.
“This will be a revolving loan fund the City will be able to utilize for as long as the funds are available. SENDD did a similar program in Geneva that has been successful and continues to grow monetarily,” said Brown.
Another advantage of the program is SENDD has a contracting company that can build houses in a short time frame, but the City can choose to utilize local contractors for housing projects as well.
“I’m excited for the opportunities this grant gives to Henderson,” said Mayor Corbin Tessman. “We can acutually initiate building a house instead of waiting for someone to come in and build their own. I don’t think this has ever happened here but we are ready to move forward as soon as possible.”
According to Tessman, the City will look at building on one of the lots in the Providence Subdivision first. “We are looking at multiple avenues to use the grant money. It could also be utilized to refurbish an existing house that the City owns besides new construction,” said Tessman.
The purpose of the RWHF is to assist communities in providing affordable and quality housing, according to the Nebraska Department of Economic Development. It was signed into law in 2017 to assist rural communities in attracting working families with affordable housing stock.
With such a tight housing market in Henderson, this grant will create additional housing, attract new residents and increase tax valuations.
Eligible activities for the grant include:
- New owner-occupied housing – no more than $325,000.
- New rental housing units – no more than $250,000.
- Owner-occupied or rental housing units for which the cost to substantially rehab exceeds 50% of a unit’s assessed value.
- Upper story housing
- Rehab/conversion of an existing building into housing.
