The Blaine County Housing Authority is seeking to fill a position on its board of directors to replace Susan Passovoy, who will step down next month after four years of service.
"In the last four years, we have more than doubled our inventory of community housing units," Passovoy said in an interview. "But this is still such a small number compared to what we need."
During a meeting of the authority's board on Wednesday, Aug. 12, at Hailey City Hall, Passovoy stressed the importance of working with other entities in the county that are geared toward establishing affordable housing alternatives for workers. She said that would "reduce redundancy and increase capacity" in the effort to garner federal funding.
Other organizations in the county working to secure affordable housing are Habitat for Humanity, the Ketchum Community Development Corp. and the Ketchum Urban Renewal Agency.
The housing authority was established more than a decade ago with hopes of becoming financially self-sufficient by funding its administration with a percentage of sales and re-sales of community housing units.
Housing Authority Executive Administrator Kathy Grotto said that for this to succeed, the organization would have to quadruple its current number of community housing units.
The housing authority manages 61 affordable housing units in Ketchum, 11 in Sun Valley, 17 in Hailey and three in Blaine County. By encouraging jurisdictions in the county to place affordable housing requirements on developers and by placing deed restrictions on those properties to sell units under market rate, the housing authority facilitates home buying for those in the community who would otherwise be unable to afford it.
The organization depends on service contracts from area municipalities and the county to fund a large share of its operations.
The authority's 2010 fiscal year budget is expected to remain stable from last year, spending a total of $143,000 from local jurisdictions.
Blaine County will provide $67,000, Ketchum $70,000 and Hailey $6,000.
Sun Valley and Bellevue give no money to the organization.
In the coming year, the authority plans to spend about $9,500 on staff education, sending Grotto to one regional and one national affordable housing conference.
"These will be good opportunities to network and gain a better understanding of the maze of federal funding," Grotto said.
The authority also plans to spend $12,000 on a consultant to develop sustainable funding strategies in case local funding ceases.
Tony Evans: tevans@mtexpress.com
