Volunteer group from Quincy partners with YWCA to buy first home to address city’s housing crisis

QUINCY — The volunteer-led group Housing Solutions Quincy (HSQ) has amassed roughly $130,000 in donations in a little more than a year since its inception to buy and renovate a two-bedroom home in southwest Quincy that will provide supportive housing to those in need, with plans to close the deal set for today.

The house will be maintained and managed by the YWCA as part of its supportive housing program, which provides stable housing to low-income community members while caseworkers equip them with the skills and resources to prepare them to eventually move into permanent housing on their own.

Stacey Nicholas, senior pastor at First Christian Church and a member of HSQ, said housing is more than just having a bed to sleep in and a roof to shelter under.

“Having stable housing is good for the community because people can get jobs, people can participate in their kids’ schooling, they can volunteer for things,” Nicholas said. “It means that eventually they move out of supportive housing, maybe into a house where they pay taxes. Providing this initial step of housing stabilizes our communities.”

The details — such as if the house will allow pets, how long folks will be allowed to stay, how the application process will work — are still being worked out. The home needs renovations before it’s ready for anyone to move in. 

“We need to find a contractor first, and that’s challenging in this community,” said Selena Stegeman, president of the YWCA Board of Directors.

The organization is seeking volunteer tradespeople to assist with the renovations. The electrical system needs to be repaired, and though the furnace is working, it’s estimated to be as old as the house and will likely need to be replaced soon.

“There’s all different kinds of projects: windows, roof, gutters — there’s lots of things that need to be done right now,” said Shelby Clinging, vice president of the YWCA Board of Directors. “We’re determining what needs to be done, what can be done and what can wait.”

Before it hit the market, the home was offered to the YWCA by a former employee who wanted to leave an impact by providing a house for somebody in need. The purchase price is around $57,000. After the cost of renovations, much of the remaining funds likely will be set aside for maintenance, property taxes and backup funding for case management in the event the organization loses the federal grant money that currently funds it.

A memo issued by the White House budget office that paused hundreds of billions of dollars in grants and other forms of federal assistance was rescinded Wednesday afternoon — just two days after it was originally published — following widespread backlash and confusion from citizens and politicians across the political spectrum. The pause was ordered to “provide the administration time to review agency programs and determine the best uses of the funding for those programs consistent with the law and the President’s priorities.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the rescinding was simply to eliminate confusion as to what the freeze applied to, not a rescinding of the administration’s efforts to “end the egregious waste of federal funding.” Many are preparing for the freeze to return in the coming days or weeks, with more clarity as to what the freeze applies to.

“I think it’s something we all have to prepare for … If we lose the grant funding, then we can’t case manage. We can’t give them the resources that they need to continue to build their own habits, to better support the community, to be a better community member,” Clinging said.

Aside from potential barriers that might exist in securing the grant money that funds the entire supportive housing program, the grants themselves come with limitations.

“Our goal is to meet the community’s needs without the barriers that our grants put on our current programs,” Stegeman said.

The YWCA oversees 26 units as part of its supportive housing program, for which an estimated 100 applicants are currently on a waiting list. The grants funding the program often come with stipulations that state applicants who meet certain criteria must be given priority. Since the new house will be bought with donations, applicants who fall through the cracks could have a better chance at being accepted.

“That’s the benefit of this (donation from HSQ) versus the grant funding,” Stegeman said. “We can really be more flexible.”

In an area with a well-documented shortage of housing units, flexibility goes a long way.

The latest Comprehensive Housing Needs Assessment study, completed in 2023 by the Great River Economic Development Foundation (GREDF), found Quincy was lacking or severely lacking in:

• single-family housing
• condominiums/townhomes
• market rate rental housing
• affordable rate rental housing 
• and senior housing.

Within the three years leading up to the study’s 2023 publication, 60 new rental units had been added to the market. However, hundreds of additional units are needed by 2033 to keep up with existing and future demand.

Affordability plays a huge role. Regarding affordable rate rental housing, the study said, “This lack of inventory has also pushed rents to higher levels than what the properties should be asking.” 

The five-year estimated median gross rent for Adams County was $823 in 2023, up from $782 the year before. The number is likely higher now, though data is not yet available. Additionally, roughly one in five renters in town experience severe issues with their unit — defined as incomplete kitchen or plumbing facilities or more than one person per room — or spent more than half of their monthly income on rent. (The advice that 30 percent of one’s monthly income be spent on housing costs is often based on guidelines set in the 1980s by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.)

Lack of housing was the issue that led to the formation of HSQ in October 2023. Following a meeting called by Mayor Mike Troup and Chuck Bevelheimer, former director of planning and development, attention was brought to the issue of people who have nowhere to go when their home is deemed uninhabitable following an inspection.

If a tenant is experiencing issues with their unit and the landlord fails to make the necessary repairs, the tenant can submit a minimum housing complaint form to city officials. An inspection is conducted by the city, and if deemed unfit for occupancy, the structure is placarded, and all residents are forced to leave the premises. 

To say the current process allows folks to slip through the cracks would be an understatement. For people in the most vulnerable of situations, reaching out for help could very easily result in homelessness, which could lead to a list of potential problems. Perhaps a sinkhole would be a more appropriate analogy.

The mayor’s notes from that meeting indicated that, while programs and organizations to house people in need are in existence and funded, there’s still a lack of units to house people in.

The YWCA’s waitlist isn’t the only one filling up as a result.

Jerry Gille, director of the Quincy Housing Authority (QHA), said applications for two of the agency’s properties have been temporarily closed, primarily due to excessive demand. Indian Hills, with units ranging from one to four bedrooms, has a waitlist of roughly 100 applicants. A QHA property at 29th and Broadway that caters to seniors has a years-long waitlist of about 20 applicants.

As shelters and waitlists become overwhelmed, community members with nowhere left to turn find refuge in abandoned buildings, makeshift forts and even under semi-trucks.

During their latest point-in-time (PIT) count — an annual “count of sheltered and unsheltered people experiencing homelessness on a single night in January,” as defined by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development — YWCA employees encountered about 35 people.

“I was blown away … (by) how many people we encountered just walking the streets, and it was freezing that night,” said Amy Roberts, director of case management for the YWCA. 

The count was conducted last Wednesday, when the temperature dropped to as low as 6 degrees.

Roberts emphasized that the PIT count only included the people they encountered directly. She estimates the actual number of homeless people in the community to be two or three times that amount. 

“I know people who are living on the street who I didn’t see that day, and we’re not able to count them,” Roberts said.

As the county experiences a lack of housing, the general public lacks understanding as to how severe and widespread the issue is. The ripple effects could, unless the issue is resolved soon, land its last domino in the pocketbooks of Quincy taxpayers to fix.

Clinging described speaking with people who didn’t realize there was a housing crisis in their own community and thought it was “just a Chicago issue.” Seeing various items of familiarity, such as food and electronics, sprinkled into photos that show how bad some of the housing conditions are, helped them understand the problem a bit more, she said.

“We have privilege, right? We all have homes over our heads, and I think we take that for granted … I think what (HSQ is) doing with this committee and providing the funding for this — it’s phenomenal,” Clinging said before thanking the group. 

“It makes a difference. Seeing all the negativity in the world right now, but being a part of this positivity, to make a positive change for people who aren’t as lucky and as privileged. It’s huge.”

People who wish to donate can contact Ryan Roberts at (217) 221-9922 or mail donations marked for Housing Solutions Quincy to the YWCA at 325 S. Eighth, Suite G in Quincy.