Columbia Housing Authority marks 70 years as residents say housing needs remain
Marie Moyer
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The Columbia Housing Authority, a non-profit that offers low-cost housing, celebrated a ribbon cutting Wednesday marking 70 years of services.
But demand for its services continues to outpace available housing.
CHA serves over 2,000 households and nearly 4,000 people in Boone County and Columbia, according to the organization. Its work includes providing housing programs and support services, such as housing vouchers and rental assistance.
According to a recent survey of north-central Columbia residents, more affordable housing is needed.
Survey results were gathered through BeHeardCoMo and the North Central Columbia Association walking tour between Jan. 29 and April 5. Results are set to be presented at Columbia’s Housing and Community Development Commission meeting Wednesday.
The survey had over 200 respondents, with participants given the option to respond to questions with either low, medium or high interest.
Over 61% of participants felt a high interest in building new affordable owner-occupied housing, and 68% of participants expressed a high interest in building new affordable rental housing.
Housing assistance was also of interest, with almost 53% of participants having high support for homebuyer assistance and homebuyer education, and almost 58% of participants highly interested in providing rental vouchers to unhoused people.
ABC 17 News spoke with residents from north central Columbia who have felt increasing rent costs.
“I pay a very high rent right now,” resident Calvin Erickson said. “It’s a very loud and active neighborhood, you know, that’s fine, but it is expensive.”
Erickson adds that just applying to rent includes some hefty payments for those looking for housing.
“We were able to get it [our apartment] through Zillow through a one cost application,” Erickson said. “Getting apartments, they charge for each single place and sometimes like $60 to $100 for every single application and when you’re having to pay rent and a deposit on a place, you can’t afford that to do that more than once.”
Resident Crystal Newcomb tells ABC 17 News cost of living in general has been getting high for everyone.
“Rent is high in Columbia,” Newcomb said. “Landlords and those, they’re raising rent as well to cover things.”
Newcomb adds that student demand can also impact prices.
“We’ve got a population of folks living in this community that kind of skew the data in terms of income and affordability and job availability”
Of the eight BeHeardCoMo responses, half expressed a need for homes with amenities for disabled residents. Six responses mentioned issues with increasing rent costs and residents living on fixed incomes.
“Many of us are able-bodied enough to live alone but still cannot afford Columbia’s soaring rent and bills,” said one response.
“Columbia must prioritize independent disabled adults on fixed incomes in all housing programs,” said one response.
One also mentioned being stuck on CHA’s housing waitlist for over a year with little movement.
“I’ve been on the waiting list CHA for over a year and barely moved down ten spots in that time,” one response said. “A lot of those big companies will end up switching hands with another big company and then they will change the leasing agreement with the original tenant a lot of times.”
Randy Cole, CEO of the Columbia Housing Authority, said 1,000 households are on the waitlist. According to prior reporting, over 1,250 households were on the waitlist on Jan. 15.
The waitlist includes low-income households enrolled in Section 8 who use federal housing vouchers. The agency previously said it does not expect the waitlist to open until 2027.
“There is a definite strong need for affordable housing in our community,” Cole said. “We’ve of course expanded our portfolio this last year with our Kinney Point project and we’re turning our attention to what we could do next to further meet the need in our community.”
He adds that high construction, land and labor costs are a major factor in slowed housing production.
“Recently, tariffs have impacted materials as well, so lots of inputs into the cost of housing and the cost of housing has much further outpaced wages for local households,” Cole said.
Cole reports that CHA is currently in the middle of renovating 120 units with plans on adding 43 new units to Columbia.
“I’m Really looking forward to keeping the good momentum we have and looking at how do we broaden our impact even further as we as we’re going forward as an organization,” Cole said.