The Washington County Hawkeye Area Community Action Program office has recently acquired funds to improve and expand their transitional housing facilities.

The East Central Iowa Housing Trust Fund approved an award of $97,428 for HACAP to renovate their Old Main housing facility on Lexington Boulevard and complete renovations on one additional unit. This award was born out of the Washington Economic Development Group’s monthly Housing Initiative Group meetings. WEDG Director Mary Audia says after Washington HACAP Operations Manager RenElla Crawford made a request for assistance from the group, they worked with the housing trust fund and the City of Washington create this funding resource, “So what we’re going to do is we put moneys together now where we can help to renovate the space that HACAP is in out on Old Main is what locals call it. We’re going to be able to remodel that and then also add a new unit. They had started a new unit out there but weren’t able to, so now we’re going to be able to finish a 16th unit out there to allow more housing.”

The HACAP Transitional Housing facilities has provided 15 units for homeless families in Washington County since 1991. Work on repairs and completion of the 16th unit is slated to start in the next few months with completion by the end of 2023.