Image courtesy of city of Jefferson

The City of Jefferson is continuing to seek community feedback through a program that focuses on housing.

City Administrator Scott Peterson says the city was selected to work with ISU Extension and Outreach with a Rural Housing Readiness Assessment. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio the ultimate goal is to address housing needs and wants within the community through the structure program with Extension. Peterson points out the initial step is with public engagement through a survey that he encourages everyone who works and lives in Jefferson to take the 15 question, five minute survey.

“So they’re looking for residents, but they’re also looking for folks who may not be residents, and are affected by the housing needs in Jefferson. So if you happen to work in Jefferson and would like to have some different housing opportunities here in town, by all means we’re looking for those folks to complete this survey too. So really want it to be as broad-based as possible, get as much responses, as many responses to this as we can.”  

Peterson notes that close to 300 responses have been submitted but he would like as many people to do the survey as possible. He explains that when the survey closes after December 3rd, Extension will analyze the data and discuss with a citizens committee in January to identify housing projects for the city to do. Peterson states that the city was awarded a $20,000 grant, with a $10,000 local match, to provide seed funds to do an initial housing project. Click here to take the survey.