by Jason Van Sickle
In December of last year I organize and co-hosted the first Kansas Rural Housing Conference, which then sparked the creation of the Kansas Rural Housing Coalition (KRHC).
The single most important message that I took from the 2013 conference was the need for better rural housing solutions that are NOT reliant on government subsidies and do NOT require local incentives.
Therefore, as a developer I set out on a mission to provide communities with high quality, incentive-free, market rate housing.
I also decided as a professional analyst that it was time to provide communities with better housing information (data, research, and analysis), and to help communities save money by providing that information for free.
As a developer, I am proud to announce that my company has ramped up to almost $100 million in multifamily housing projects that are now in our pipeline in communities across Kansas; however, that is just the start of our development efforts.
Over the next several years our goal is to bring over $800 million in housing investments to over 120 Kansas communities.
The best part is that we plan to completely fund that investment with private equity (no local or state incentives).
In terms of research and analysis:
In addition to publishing a free housing report for every city and county in Kansas (700+ reports / 60,000+ pages), KRHC has given presentations at dozens of community meetings across Kansas to facilitate housing discussions and disseminate housing information.
Now, we are preparing to host our first county-wide Housing Leadership Roundtable events, and we are also preparing to launch our next big research initiative: the Kansas Community Information System (KSCIS).
In the months ahead the KSCIS project will work to compile a statewide database of locally sourced housing data.
That data will be used to create high quality, higher accuracy (i.e., better than Census data) housing studies, which we will provide for free to all KSCIS participating communities. In short, we will start providing free annual housing studies.
Finally, I am excited to announce that we have begun to plan the 2014 KRHC conference, which will take on an innovative new format this year.
This year’s event will feature our first Kansas Rural Housing Annual Report, and (as with all of our meetings) the event will be packed with valuable housing information and insights.
The difference (this year) is that the conference will be held online, which will make attendance easier and completely free to participants.
That means that you can assemble local stakeholders (community and business leaders) in your office, conference room, or local meeting facility and interactively participate in the two hour event.
One important note: This year’s conference will be for members-only, but the event will include Basic members and our Basic membership is free.
If you are interested in learning more about my efforts to develop incentive-free housing in rural communities, then you can find additional information at www.RuralRentalHousing.com.
To download your community’s free housing report, to view KRHC conference and presentation videos, and to enroll as a KRHC member, visit the newly redesigned KRHC website at www.KansasRuralHousing.com.
Also, please feel free to contact me if there is any way that I can be helpful to you and your community (or organization), when it comes to housing issues.
You can email me at jvansickle@jvscompany.com.
We’re all in this together, and together we will find real, meaningful, and financially feasible solutions to rural housing challenges.