Northwest Kansas needs housing. New funding could spur growth.

A lack of housing is a barrier to growth in northwest Kansas, where about half of the housing stock was built prior to the 1950s.

With the region in need of new homes , a fresh funding initiative aims to address regional gaps.

The Kansas Legislature passed a budget for fiscal year 2025, which began in July, that includes a provision to transfer $7.3 million from special revenue funds to the Northwest Kansas Housing Economic Development Fund.

That money will be spread across a few construction projects:

• The City of Atwood will receive $750,000 for residential infrastructure improvements along South 7 ^th Street.
• The community of Russell will get $1.5 million for residential infrastructure development at Main and Maple streets.
• $1 million will go to the community of Sharon Springs for housing infrastructure work along 6 ^th Street.

An additional $4 million provided by the Dane G. Hansen Foundation , based in Logan County, will be paired with local matching funds, also totaling $4 million, to tackle gaps in housing construction across the foundation’s 26-county service area in northwest and north-central Kansas.

The foundation board chairman, Warren Gfeller, writes in an email that housing issues exist in nearly every community within the organization’s service area. Some of those issues include dilapidated structures that need demolished, existing homes that need modernizing, and a shortage of new housing construction.

“The housing shortage was preventing communities from growing, and affecting our employers when potential new hires could not accept positions because there was no place for them to live,” Gfeller writes.

Northwest Kansas Innovation Center regional housing specialist Randy Speaker says this funding will help close the housing gap in northwest Kansas by providing the infrastructure to build new affordable housing options, restore old housing stock to livable standards, and provide low-maintenance homes for senior residents.

Speaker is the former housing specialist for the state Department of Commerce. He regularly travels to Norton, more than 290 miles west and north of his home in Topeka, to administer the Innovation Center’s housing programs. He says there is not one perfect answer for addressing the state housing crisis, but through all the towns he’s visited, he’s noticed a few common trends which need to be part of the bigger housing conversation.

“One challenge I see in smaller communities, is they have a few good builders and maybe one plumber and one electrician, and course they’re all in their 70s,” Speaker says. “What we’re looking at is a challenge on the production side of housing. Unlike urban areas where you have multiple contractors who you can get bids from, they don’t generally have that access in rural communities.”

Speaker says the cost of building projects, including affordable housing, increases when contractors must travel across the state to complete a job. Higher construction costs are then offset by higher final prices or increased rental rates for new homes, which can place those homes out of financial reach for many people.

“The initial effort here is going to be for homeownership and new construction,” Speaker says. “We want to get those new long-term assets going.”

The funding echoes an economic development push by state Rep. Troy Waymaster, a Republican from Bunker Hill and the House appropriations committee chairman, announced earlier this spring.

State officials are not just focused on improving housing in the northwest quadrant. Recently, Lt. Gov. and Secretary of Commerce David Toland announced eight communities across central and northeast Kansas will receive grant monies totaling $50,000 to build residential units on the upper floors of downtown buildings.

The goal of the initiative, called Residential Opportunities on Main Street (ROOMS) , is to create 35 new housing spaces in communities that are part of the Kansas Main Street program.

Some of the projects that will receive funds through the ROOMS program include:

• Creating 10 new units in the Sturdevant Hardware building in Chanute, ranging from studio apartments to two-bedroom units.
• In Emporia, building seven new one- and two-bedroom units in the downtown Bundrem building.
• The town of Sterling will get six new one- and two-bedroom units in the Shay Building in the town’s historic central business district.
• Atchison will get a four-bedroom upscale apartment, known as the “Little Green House” project, in the city’s downtown district above a former game and hobby shop.

In a statement, Toland says there is a substantial amount of unused upper-floor space in downtown buildings throughout rural Kansas, which poses a “unique opportunity” to create more housing units.

“Investing in rural downtown areas is critical for the quality of life in these communities, making them more appealing for current and future residents.”

This article is being published digital only in conjunction with the Summer 2024 issue of The Journal , a publication of the Kansas Leadership Center. To learn more about KLC, visit its website . Order your copy of the magazine at the KLC Store or subscribe to the print edition.

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