COLUMBIA – Columbia City Council members will have their first of three public discussions of the city’s 2024 fiscal year budget at Monday’s meeting. Part of it includes allocating funds to improving and expanding affordable housing in the city.
The current budget will send $470,000 to the Columbia Housing Authority (CHA) to partially fund the demolition and reconstruction of the Providence Walkway apartments across the road from its headquarters on Switzler Street.
Randy Cole, CEO of the CHA, highlighted the organization’s commitment to raising living conditions.
“We really want our properties to be nice, healthy, energy efficient, good quality housing, and we need more of it,” Cole said.
And they’re building more of it.
The organization will start construction on the Kinney Point complex near the corner of West Sexton Road and North Garth Road this fall. That new building will have 34 units. And early next year, they’ll begin demolition and reconstruction of their Park Avenue structure. The new complex will have 79 units, nine more than the old one.
In total, 43 new units will be created through both projects. This comes at a time when CHA’s waitlist of families for vouchers is over 1,200 households. Cole says it’s the largest expansion since 1978.
The city of Columbia paid the CHA $2 million for each the Kinney Point and Park Avenue projects. The total cost for both of these projects is approximately $32 million. They are fully funded.
CHA is still seeking additional funding for the Providence Walkway project, which they hope to start construction on during the first quarter of 2025.
Randi Woodson lives at the current Providence Walkway complex. She’s been there for 13 months.
“I haven’t always had to come to public housing personally,” Woodson said. “I’ve lived in market-rate, rent-paid, but now I have to be here because I can’t afford any place else. But I’m thankful for where I am, but it could be better.”
Cole said those buildings were constructed in the late 1950s and early 1960s and badly need an update.
Woodson hopes that a new and improved neighborhood will inspire the children who live there.
“They would be proud of their surroundings and so they would want to make sure they keep it up and get out and get a job,” she said. “I just see it being a better opportunity for the children to see what they can do and come home to.”
Cole emphasized CHA housing is available to the lowest income earners. He said, on average, tenants pay about $200 a month per unit.