DREAM status makes Cape Girardeau eligible for more funding

Cape Girardeau's status as a DREAM Initiative city puts it in the running for an extra serving of federal housing repair money.

On Dec. 15, the Missouri Housing Development Commission will consider requests for almost $6 million from 17 applicants. Cape Girardeau is asking for $150,000, the same amount it received last year, from the $2 million pool set aside for rural areas and $102,000 under a new $1 million set-aside for Downtown Revitalization and Economic Assistance for Missouri, or DREAM, program cities.

The total pool of money available is $4 million. Requests from rural communities fall short of the $2 million earmarked for those locales, making it likely requests that pass initial scrutiny will be funded. But the competition for the DREAM funding set aside is much more intense, with $2.2 million in requests chasing $1 million in funding.

Cape Girardeau's rural communities funding helps repair the owner-occupied homes of lower-income people in what the city calls the Jefferson-Bloomfield project, said Stephen Williams, housing assistance coordinator for the city. The money supplements a 2004 Community Development Block Grant that provides help of up to $20,000 for major home repairs.

The project area is borderd by South Pacific Street, South Benton Street, Jefferson Avenue to Bloomfield Street.

The DREAM Initiative funds, if approved, would be spent for the same purposes on up to five homes in the areas designated for improvement through the program, Williams said.

Since the city started using block grants and housing funds in 1982 to help with home repairs, 272 homeowners have received help, Williams said.

-- Rudi Keller