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Page last updated on October 2, 2019 at 10:20 am

Thank you, Scott (Shishman, ONB Region President), and thanks, everyone, for being here today.

It’s an exciting day.  Today represents the culmination of many months of problem-solving and community-building on the part of staff at the many agencies and financial institutions represented around us. At the same time, today is a bright beginning.  Today, we turn the ground under our feet for the Kinser Flats building that will provide 50 new apartments for some of our most at-risk residents. For these future residents, this groundbreaking is just the first step toward having a place to call home that can provide the peace of mind and security needed for their own next chapter. 

We’ve been creating possibilities for new beginnings like this all across Bloomington.  This is the City’s sixteenth major affordable housing project we’ve partnered to develop since 2016, adding more than 800 units to the city’s inventory.  In 2019, we’ve broken ground or cut ribbons at Switchyard Apartments on South Rogers, Southern Knoll on West Third Street, and B-Line Heights (just opened this summer in the Trades District). We’ve also provided funding for the rehabilitation of 116 units operated by the Bloomington Housing Authority and 208 units at Limestone Crossing and pledged to finance infrastructure for fifty new homes at Osage Place, Habitat for Humanity’s latest community, near Broadview. We will continue to do everything we can to ensure that Bloomington continues to welcome people from all walks of life with safe, affordable, decent housing -- whether by acquiring land ourselves, updating zoning rules, and/or collaborating with creative partners like today. 

For today, right here, the City’s Housing and Neighborhood Development Department (HAND), led by Doris Sims, provided $175,000 in federal HOME funds for Kinser Flats, and the Bloomington Housing Authority (BHA) is making project-based Section 8 vouchers available.  

Today’s groundbreaking would not be possible without the investment of Cinnaire, a community development financial institution, or CDFI, that specializes in making affordable housing happen.  Cinnaire’s investment in Kinser Flats is historic, as it is the first facilitated by our community’s new nonprofit, CDFI-Friendly Bloomington, or CFB.  Established in late 2018, CFB will continue to make matches between national investors and community-enriching projects like this one, that has traditionally been difficult to finance.  We are thrilled to work with CFB, with their new Executive Director Brian Payne, to accomplish more of our community’s goals. And welcome Cinnaire to this and more deals!   

We are also tremendously grateful to Old National Bank for their generous support of this project, providing the construction loan and permanent financing, and sponsoring the $500,000 Affordable Housing Program award from the Federal Home Loan Bank Indianapolis (thank you Federal Home Loan Bank!). We are deeply appreciative, too, of the Indiana Housing & Community Development Authority, which awarded the project almost $1.2 million in Low Income Housing Tax Credits, $500,000 from its Development Fund, and provided additional Section 8 vouchers. 

Hearty thanks as well to Keystone Construction, ARCHitecture Trio Inc., Hayes Gibson Property Services, and Milner & Caringella Inc. for your involvement.  

In Monroe County, Centerstone provides 140 beds of housing for persons with mental health and/or substance use disorders. As the developer and owner of Kinser Flats, they are at the center of all of this. Thank you, Suzanne, for your leadership, and it is my honor to present Linda Grove-Paul, Vice President of Adult and Family Services at Centerstone, to tell us a little more about supportive services for Kinser Flats residents.   Thank you, Linda.


 

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