Cass County housing unit takes step forward

By Gary Scott on February 3, 2016 at 1:22pm

Progress is being made on an affordable housing project in Cass County.

A seven-acre piece of land was approved just west of the southwest corner of Virginia at a recent city council meeting for a proposed four-million dollar, 20-home housing project by the Cass Affordable Housing Initiative.

Housing program chairman Laymon Carter.

“We have an option to buy, and that option’s good for two years. We turn in the application next month,” he says.

Carter says the next step is a preliminary application to the Illinois Housing Authority.

“We feel real confident that’s going to go through, and then in June, able to go to full application, and if that’s funded, which we feel confident it will be, it probably will start letting bids in September or October. If everything goes well, we should be able to start the project in the spring, and our intention would be to complete by complete by July, all the units,” Carter says.

“It’s been a while but it’s going to be worth it for all of Cass County and Virginia and the whole area.”

Carter says the Cass Affordable Housing Initiative is partnering with Windsor Homes in Springfield on the project, and says they’ve worked together before on a housing complex in Beardstown.