TOWAOC \u2013 Ute Mountain Ute officials recently broke ground to build 10 housing units for the homeless.<\/p>\n
Located near the rodeo grounds on Ute Trail Road, the housing units are part of a long-term plan for up to 200 new homes for tribal members. It\u2019s the tribe\u2019s first housing project in eight years, said Ute Housing Authority development director Benny Cordova.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have over 100 people on a waiting list for housing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Tribal officials are working to complete the first phase of the project, which includes roads, water, sewer and power for the units. Phase I includes space for mental health and counseling services.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a real priority need for homeless people,\u201d said Ute Mountain Ute Chairman Manuel Heart. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to address that right off the bat.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 200 units are expected to be completed in 2030, Heart said.<\/p>\n
A $900,000 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grant awarded in February and a $300,000 match from the tribe is funding infrastructure for Phase I.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope to have the infrastructure completed in the next three to four months, depending on the weather,\u201d Cordova said.<\/p>\n
Officials hope to receive a second federal grant to complete Phase I construction.<\/p>\n
The HUD funding was part of a $651 million round of grants awarded to 586 tribes in 34 states through Indian Housing Block Grant allocations. The amount of each grant was based on a formula that considers local needs and housing units under management by the tribe or designated entity.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur nation is at its best when everyone has a fair chance to thrive,\u201d said HUD Secretary Juli\u00e1n Castro when the grants were announced.<\/p>\n
HUD\u2019s proposed fiscal year 2016 budget seeks $748 million to address critical housing and community development needs in Native American communities, including $660 million for IHBG allocations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Project funded by HUD, tribal match<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[21,13,453,144,547],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-108889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-housing-and-urban-planning","tag-towaoc","tag-ute-mountain-ute-indian-tribe"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108889\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108889"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=108889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}