Kansas City Congressman Emanuel Cleaver announced today from the lobby of Central Bank of Kansas City Tuesday morning the procurement of roughly $3 million in Community Project funding to help provide affordable housing in some of Kansas City’s low-income neighborhoods. The funding, administered through the local LISC office will also provide down payment assistance and minor home repair through LISC, the Mid America Regional Council (MARC) and other local stakeholders such as Central Bank.

“I’ve said it many times before – having a roof over your head, a place to call home, and a sense of community is central to your somebodiness,” said Congressman Cleaver. “This federal investment will increase access to affordable housing and programming that makes home ownership achievable for individuals and families throughout the region.”

 According to local LISC President Geoff Jolley, “People with extremely low income are spending 50% or more of their income on housing alone so it’s no wonder resources aren’t there for health care, child care and education,” Jolley said. “We have a lot of need in our community and we’re working hard to address that.”

Steve Giles, President of Central Bank of Kansas City was excited about the possibility of working together to continue to provide affordable housing in the Northeast community. “We provided them a list of projects that we’ve already done, mostly in the Lykins neighborhood,” Giles said. “We’ve financed about ten houses working together with the Lykins Neighborhood Trust and we’ve worked with some private developers too on homes in the 3200 block of east 7th street.

Funding will be spent primarily in two local zip codes, 64123 and 64124 and groundbreaking on the projects, according to Jolley should take place in about six months.