{"id":73434,"date":"2016-07-29T20:29:15","date_gmt":"2016-07-30T02:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ute-mountain-utes-receive-871000-housing-grant\/"},"modified":"2016-07-30T02:29:15","modified_gmt":"2016-07-30T02:29:15","slug":"ute-mountain-utes-receive-871000-housing-grant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ute-mountain-utes-receive-871000-housing-grant\/","title":{"rendered":"Ute Mountain Utes receive $871,000 housing grant"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A grant from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs will bring 12 units of workforce housing to the town of Silverton. The units are \u201cdesperately needed,\u201d said Town Administrator Bill Gardner.<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Ute Mountain Ute tribe will get $871,000 to help fight homelessness with the South Towaoc Permanent Supportive Housing project.<\/p>\n

The money is part of $9 million in grants that the state Department of Local Affairs Division of Housing set aside for eight affordable-housing projects in Colorado.<\/p>\n

The Ute Mountain Housing Authority project will include 11 single-bedroom apartments in Towaoc for tribal members, the homeless, those at risk of becoming homeless and people earning less than 30 percent of the area median income.<\/p>\n

Vouchers will be offered for tribal members, said Ute Mountain Housing Authority Director JoAnn Lemon. The modular building will be constructed in Texas and transported to Southwest Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels great,\u201d Lemon said. \u201cI hope we open some doors, because we\u2019re not through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs Executive Director Ernest House, Jr. said it\u2019s the first such partnership between the tribe and the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to thank DOLA and the tribal staff for working on the project,\u201d said House, who is a member of the Ute Mountain Ute tribe. \u201cIt\u2019s a great opportunity, and it\u2019s the first-ever housing project like this built on tribal land in the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ute Mountain Ute tribe Chairman Manuel Heart said partnerships between the state and the tribe will be key moving forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to say thank you to the state for helping us with this partnership, and to our housing department who advocated for this and are working for the future of our membership,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The tribal council\u2019s top four priorities are housing, education, healthcare and economic development, Heart said. There is a shortage of housing on the reservation, he said. The tribe has about 2,200 enrolled members, but there are only 500 homes in Towaoc, and they are mostly rental units. Multiple families are living in single dwellings, and there are many older homes, he said.<\/p>\n

The tribe also is pursuing projects that could bring an additional 16 units to Towaoc, Heart said. A federal Indian Community Development Block Grant could bring eight manufactured homes, and the tribe has invested in a revolving account that could fund an another eight, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something we\u2019ve been working on,\u201d the chairman said. \u201cWe do have a shortage of homes in Towaoc.\u201d<\/p>\n

The housing project also will provide supportive services such as behavioral health and counseling services, Lt. Gov. Donna Lynne said in a news release.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are excited that this project will be the first supportive housing project for a tribal entity on tribal land,\u201d Lynne said. \u201cOur government-to-government relationship both respects tribal sovereignty and allows us to focus on issues pertaining to all citizens of Colorado including our oldest and first inhabitants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of the $9 million in grants from Colorado Department of Local Affairs Division of Housing also will toward workforce housing in Silverton. The state announced that the San Juan County town has received a $305,430 for the 12-unit Anvil Mountain Apartments, which will serve households earning at or below 30 percent to 120 percent of area\u2019s median income.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have no rental workforce housing, and it\u2019s crippling the community,\u201d Town Administrator Bill Gardner said.<\/p>\n

The Durango Herald contributed to this article.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

pursuing additional projects<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,13,453,614,327],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-73434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-housing-and-urban-planning","tag-real-estate","tag-silverton"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73434","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=73434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73434"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=73434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}