COLUMBIA — Eighty percent. That's how much of the annual budget the Columbia Housing Authority receives from the federal government, according to the organization's CEO.
Amid a shortage of housing availability and heavy federal reliance, will affordable housing programs in mid-Missouri survive the new administration in the White House?
People like Sidney Morris certainly hope so.
"A table has four legs, and so if one leg is missing, which is the stable housing part of it, then it just makes everything else become unstable," he said.
Morris has been on a waitlist for affordable housing in Columbia for over six months. He has a job, but he also has a prior eviction, making finding housing more difficult. Also in the way is a lack of housing overall.
Columbia Housing Authority CEO Randy Cole said Morris joins over 800 people on a waitlist for housing. And, that list doesn't even paint the full picture of the need for housing.
"That's a little deceiving because we've closed all of our waitlists because of our high voucher utilization rate across all of our voucher programs, as well as our occupancy levels have been really high," Cole said.
The CHA received over $12 million through grants from the city of Columbia and Boone County from the American Rescue Plan Act, which was federally-distributed COVID-19 relief funds. The housing authority is using the funds to build more than 150 units, but most of these are rebuilds of existing structures, with occupants already in them.
"They were built in the mid-'60s ... a lot of the units we have there, each year, we deal with things like collapsing sewer lines, foundations that are failing, the electrical service isn't to a level that would power a dryer," Cole said.
The people who live in the existing units will be able to move back into the rebuilt ones. The net gain of completely new units is 43 — hardly enough to put a dent in a waitlist of over 800.
With the CHA heavily reliant on federal funds through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Cole said he is satisfied with the continuing resolution Congress passed this month to keep the government funded through September, despite contention among Democrats, who were shut out of the negotiation process, over whether they should support it.
While the CHA might receive the funding it needs for now, some of the resources it relies on could be in jeopardy.
As Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency continue to gut the federal workforce, experts told NBC News it's only a matter of time until Musk directs these efforts toward HUD, a department where workforce cuts are already underway.
"We have seen some cuts in staffing in one of our grants," Cole said. "We did have one staff member that was cut, as well as a couple of additional staff in that department."
Cole said the CHA is particularly concerned about rising insurance costs for its properties. HUD has financial resources dedicated toward addressing insurance but could stand to lose them if the staff devoted to maintaining these programs is let go.
"We're certainly tightening our belts and have been over the past few months just to prepare," Cole said.
If the CHA and other affordable housing providers in Missouri continue to lose federal resources, they may seek them from the state. However, they will be unlikely to find many there.
Organizations in mid-Missouri are actively working to fill the affordable housing gap left by the federal government.
State resources run thin
The Missouri Housing Trust Fund was established in 1994. It is financed through a $3 charge on real estate documents filed in the state. The fund is then distributed to nonprofits who apply for funding across the state. Today, the fund is stretched thin.
"In 2024, there was a little over $4 million in the housing trust fund, even though there was over $10 million in requests," said Misha Smith, the affordable housing policy manager for Empower Missouri. "Two-thirds of those requests were denied."
As the need for affordable housing has changed, Smith said the fund hasn't.
"It has been the same fee since 1994, and prices have changed a bit since 1994," they said.
Smith said Empower Missouri is working to propose legislation to increase the flat-rate fee to $12. However, Smith said even this wouldn't solve some of the issues with the mechanics of the fund.
"No matter if someone is buying a home worth $5 million or $200,000, they pay that recording fee, and $3 goes," Smith said. "The fee is also connected, of course, to real estate activity. So, if home buying is down ... the fee goes down."
Local organizations respond
Organizations in mid-Missouri are actively working to fill the affordable housing gap left by the federal government.
Ashley Switzer is the community outreach director for Show Me Central Habitat for Humanity. It is organizing volunteers to build a new neighborhood of 142 homes in north Columbia. These homes come with a zero percent-interest rate mortgage and are free of labor costs for low-income families. Still, Habitat for Humanity is adjusting to meet the times.
"To make sure our homeowners can still afford a monthly payment that's reasonable, we've gone from a 20-year mortgage to a 30-year mortgage," Switzer said. "We have really been focusing a lot on our community. Columbia is so amazing coming together to make sure that they're supporting events and building projects with us so that we can still continue building even when funding and our nation is in flux."
Love Columbia is addressing the housing need by addressing poverty as a whole.
"What we've tried to do is lean more into helping people increase their income and manage the income they currently have," said Conrad Hake, the program director of Love Columbia. "We've been working on a project called "Career Next Steps" that's a website contextualized to Columbia where we're trying to help people identify ways to move into a career path."
Still, people in Columbia remain waiting for a home to call their own.
Perry (Pete) Redmon was homeless in Columbia for two years before moving into Fresh Start, a sober recovery center. He sustained a severe head injury and lives off Social Security. He doesn't want a new house for himself but for the other people he knows who are struggling like he did.
"If I had my single-family dwelling with more than one bedroom, I could have saved myself a hundred bucks and put them in a room and fed them," Redmon said. "Let them use the shower."
Redmon said he was evicted from his previous housing in Jefferson City for letting too many homeless people into his residence to try to help them.
"They ain't had to lay out in a treeline when it's raining and there's frost on the ground and, you know, there's nowhere to go...the suffering is real," he said. "The suffering is real."
