The Evanston City Council tonight is scheduled to vote on a plan to spend $520,000 in federal funds to rehab and refinance four one-bedroom apartments in a building at 131 Callan Ave.
131 Callan Ave. (2007 Cook County Assessor’s Office photo)
The Evanston City Council tonight is scheduled to vote on a plan to spend $520,000 in federal funds to rehab and refinance four one-bedroom apartments in a building at 131 Callan Ave.
131 Callan Ave. (2007 Cook County Assessor’s Office photo)
The property is owned by the Housing Opportunity Development Corporation, which owns several other subsidized housing developments in the city.
The rehab work is scheduled to be done by Community Builders, an Evanston-based group that has providing construction industry job training opportunities for unemployed youths.
Marry Ellen Poole, the city’s housing planner says the cost of the project, $130,000 for each of the 650-square-foot units unit, is less than the $144,355 per unit limit for one-bedroom apartments set by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Poole said HODC has owned the building for a little over 10 years and that it’s very impressive that the group has been able to maintain it for low-income tenants for so long without seeking government subsidies until now.
She said one of the units has been vacant and uninhabitable for about a year since a former tenant let pet dogs tear up the inside of the apartment.
That vacancy will make it possible for the building to be rehabbed without displacing any of the existing tenants, she added.
The city receives about $500,000 a year from HUD’s HOME program. Of the five Community Housing Development Organizations in Evanston, HODC is the only one that has a project ready for approval, Poole said.
The assistance to the project is expected to include a $290,500 grant to cover rehab costs and a $229,500 no-interest, 20-year, balloon-payment mortgage loan to refinance the building.
Tenants will pay $725 a month in rent for the rehabbed units.