HOUSING PROGRAMS

ARa developed and/or received 13 housing letters of intent, proposals or applications for funding from Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), HOME Grants, Federal Home Loan Bank—Affordable Housing Program (AHP), Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LITC), and Blight Elimination Program Grants (BEP) . ARa staff developed over $10 million in housing funding requests. ARa administered housing grants over $4.2 million. ARa managed 11 homeowner occupied housing rehabilitation programs, investing over

$1.5 million in 130 homes. ARa/SIHCDC acquired a senior housing facility ($100,000 in grants) and a requested a

grant for $500,000 to renovate the facility and its 10 units. ARa/SIHCDC submitted Low Income Housing Tax Credit applications for $7.5 million to

develop senior housing in blighted downtown properties. ARa/SIHCDC received $1.5 million in HOME and AHP funding for multi-unit housing de-

velopment. ARa continues to provide staffing and administrative support to SIHCDC. ARa is working on four BEP grants totaling over $1.5 million.

SIHCDC acquires Town and Garden Apartments in Columbus

SIHCDC is a subsidiary of ARa. ARa staffs and manages SIHCDC. It serves as a tool to develop and preserve housing for our member communities. SIHCDC is a 501c3 non-profit whose mission is to im-prove the quality of life of the residents of ARa communities by providing quality affordable housing with a focus on senior housing.

SIHCDC purchased Town and Garden Apartments for $155,000. Grant funds from City of Columbus, Heritage Fund of Bartholomew County and Main Source Bank made the project possible. The property is the old-est subsidized housing facility in Columbus and was on the verge of being sold for market rate housing when SIHCDC took steps to acquire it. The project helped preserve needed affordable housing in Columbus and save the tenants from possibly losing their homes.

Support for this project was provided by:

City of Columbus the partnership and funding - $50,000 CDBG

Heritage Fund Grant - $50,000 matching grant

Main Source for grant of $5,000 and loan financing

Town and Garden background information:

Was owned by Columbus Senior Center (Mill Race Center)

One of the first affordable senior housing facilities in Columbus

Housing for seniors 62 and older

SIHCDC managed property for Mill Race for last year and half

Consists of 10 units/apartments of which there are six 1-bedroom and four efficiencies

Avg. rents are $363 a month

Future Steps:

HOME grant from IHCDA for rehab in March for approx. $350,000

Accessibility improvements – Aging In place Upgrades

Energy efficiency upgrades – Heating and air conditioning system, windows, etc.

Other improvements include new roof, flooring,

ANNUAL REPORT

“Being a member of Ad-

ministrative Resources

provides the City of Sey-

mour with added capaci-

ty, expertise and re-

sources we could not

afford on our own…”

Mayor Craig Luedeman,

2014 ARa Board President

2014

Highlights

$36,000,000 in re-quests

88% success rate

Assisted 2 Stellar Communities

Worked with 27 small businesses

Housing programs—assisted 130 homes

ARa Office - Home away from home

2014 Annual Report SUMMARY

ARa staff submitted almost $36 million in grant requests and pro-posals. ARa staff wrote 47 grant proposals and letters of intent, of which 41were funded, resulting in an 88.7% success rate, up 11% from last year.

Grant Administration

The organization administered over $15.5 million in grant funds since January of 2013. These grants varied from environmental infrastructure projects, economic development projects, home-owner rehabilitation grants, sidewalks/trails and loan portfolio management.

Staffing Hours

ARa provided/logged 191 staffing hours and generated over $26,000 in hourly contractual revenue. ARa provided staff ca-pacity to SIHCDC and a redevelopment commission through hourly-based contracts. These agreements helped support our member communities and allowed ARa to diversify its revenue.

2014 Program Year Prepared May 2015

Steinker Platz Park - City of Seymour ARa worked with the city and community partners on the development of a $200,000 downtown pocket park. The park was funded in part through a $50,000 Place Based Investment Fund grant from OCRA. The balance of the funds came from the city, the community foundation and a number of private donors. One of donors was the Stephens' family who do-nated around $20,000 in honor of their mother (Sarah Steinker Stephens) who the park is named after. The park replaced a blighted building and now features concrete walkways, brick pavers and landscaping which includes trees, bushes and flowers. At the front is a hand trellis donated by a local resident and a large stone with the name Steinker Platz.

Stienker Platz Pocket Park in Seymour

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

ARa secured and managed almost $22 million in infrastructure grants to help address environ-mental infrastructure improvements (sanitary, storm and drinking water issues), planning stud-ies, public facilities, parks, downtown development, as well as construction of new trails and sidewalks).

ARa continued to work with the City of Columbus’ CDBG Entitlement Administration. In 2014, ARa helped secure and administer over $887,000 in CDBG and CDBG-R entitlement funds for Columbus sidewalks, neighborhood revitalization, Columbus Housing Authority’s scattered site rehabilitation and its housing rehab program.

ARa wrote four trail grants to Department of Natural Resources and Indiana Department of Transportation for over $2.2 million and securing 2 grants for over $1.9 million.

ARa secured and administered a Main Street Revitalization Program (MSRP) grant totaling $400,000 from OCRA for downtown streetscape improvements.

ARa wrote five planning grants in 2014 securing over $187,000 for studies. ARa also ad-ministered nine planning grants for over $366,000 in 2014. The grants were for comprehen-sive plans, storm water assessments, utility plans and downtowns plans.

ARa also wrote one five-year park master plan, downtown revitalization plan, community needs assessment and a CDBG Consolidated Plan.

ARa helped secure $150,000 in funding for a new fire truck.

ARa also assisted a member community in the development of their Stellar Communities Grant Program Letters of Intent (LOI) and Strategic Investment Plan (SIP) totaling over $15,000,000 in projects.

ARa submitted funding requests for both Bedford and North Vernon’s Stellar programs. A $98,000 façade planning study for Bedford and $911,000 façade construction grant and a $438,000 parking lot renovation grant for North Vernon.

Aisin’s Drivetrain and Chemical's Ex-pansion and Indus-trial Way Road Ex-

tension

ARa assisted the Town of Crothersville in securing $850,000 in Industrial De-velopment Grant Funds from the Indiana Economic Development Corporation. Aisin Drivetrain (ADI) and Aisin Chemical (ACIN) are combining to invest $44 mil-lion and create 74 jobs with-in the Crothersville Industrial Park. There currently is only one point of access to the park requiring crossing the Louis-ville and Indiana Railroad (LIRC) line with no safety signalization. With the growth of the companies within the park, public safety was a concern. The LIRC plans to significantly in-crease the number of trains daily. In the event of an emergency situation and only one point of access to the park across the rail line, there is no way for ambu-lances, fire trucks or other emergency vehicles to get into the park. The project will extend In-dustrial way road to create an alternate route into and out of the existing Industrial Park. It consists of construc-tion of 1,955 linear feet of roadway, 24 feet in width, with 10 foot ravel lanes de-signed for supporting truck traffic. In addition, upgrades are planned to existing rail-road crossing along Industri-al Drive to make it safer. These improvements will include warning lights and gates.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT/SMALL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

ARa provided assistance with two industrial development pro-jects totaling over $2.5 million in grants and helped 27 small local businesses through business planning and financial as-sistance. ARa secured and oversaw the financial management of

an $850,000 Industrial Development Grant Fund to up-grade infrastructure in an existing industrial park.

ARa worked with an Economic Development Administra-tion Public Works Grant for development of a city industri-al park.

ARa secured two new Rural Businesses Enterprise Grants for $80,000 for a loan program and business feasi-bility study.

ARa managed 5 Micro Enterprise Assistance Loan Pro-grams (MLP), collected over $9,000 through 5 open loans and retains a portfolio balance of approximately $89,000.

ARa assisted with 8 Rural Enterprise Businesses Grant programs in the processing and/or monitoring of over 20 loans and collected over $99,000 in loan payments with total loan balances of over $221,000.

ARa processed two new loan requests that totaled over $78,000 in investment and helped create or retain over 10 jobs.

ARa continued to assist a remaining business in Law-renceburg’s Small Business Grant Program in 2014.

Aisin Chemical Indiana plant expansion ground breaking in Crothersville