Housing authority asks feds for $555K: Whiteside County will use money to pay for renovations

ROCK FALLS – Whiteside County’s public housing may get a little more to work with next year, although administration will fall far short of being able to check every item on its federal wish list.

The Whiteside County Housing Authority passed its 5-year plan Wednesday, complete with a $555,000 funding request from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Coloma Homes and Civic Plaza, the county’s two largest projects, both are more than 50 years old and going through major renovations.

Coloma Homes is being rewired, while having new high-speed ethernet and telephone cable installed. Civic Plaza, a nine-story high-rise building, had all its vertical plumbing replaced, and still needs an overhaul of the horizontal pipe.

Next year, the housing authority plans to close 2 buildings and replace the wiring, add insulation, remove asbestos, and replace 82 furnaces. Estimated cost for the work is $393,000.

Over the long term, the high-rise still needs rewiring, at an estimated cost of $650,000, and sewer lines at Coloma Homes have started caving in, Executive Director Lynn Deter said.

Replacing the underground pipes is on the housing authority’s 5-year plan but is unlikely to get funding next year, Deter said. The project would cost $750,000.

Early indications are that the housing authority will get all the funding it asks for, “which hasn’t happened in a long time,” Deter said.

Deter’s office has to file the 5-year plan and funding requests with HUD by the end of the year. In years past, Whiteside County has received an average of about 85 percent of funding requests, Deter said.

Housing authority attorney, John Miller of Miller, Walker, Lancaster and Burall, said the area projects need the overhauls and that spreading the work out over several years helps to keep the units as modernized as possible.

“You get a new project in pieces, as you can pay for it,” Miller said.