Housing Authority of Champaign County Updates

This post has some updates on new people at the Housing Authority of Champaign County and some program updates. The HACC has a new interim Executive Director, Lily Walton. The HACC.net website has a commemoration and farewell page and video dedicated to the outgoing Executive Director, David Northern Sr. 

There is also a recent addition to the Board of Commissioners from the City of Champaign, Bailee VanAntwerp. The Commissioner listing still has the previous commissioner, Jim Rose, listed as of this post.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the intergovernmental organization of the Housing Authority, there is a description and overview available at their about page here:

The Housing Authority of Champaign County (HACCA) is a municipal corporation organized pursuant to the Illinois Housing Authority Act. The jurisdiction of HACC includes all incorporated and unincorporated areas of the County of Champaign, Illinois. The Housing Authority is governed by a seven-member Board of Commissioners. Members of the Board are appointed by the Mayor of the City of Champaign, the Mayor of the City of Urbana and the Chair of the Champaign County Board. One member is a participant in a HACC program. Commissioners serve for five years and have unlimited terms.

HACC was created in 1943 and for many years built, owned and managed only traditional public housing pursuant to Section 9 of the 1937 Housing Act. Faced with distressed Public Housing and ever-decreasing federal funding, HACC began redevelopment of its largest public housing communities in the 1990s using multiple mixed financing methods including Low Income Housing Tax Credits, to create new mixed-income communities. In 2010, HACC became one of only 39 Public Housing Authorities in the country to be designated as a Moving to Work (MTW) Agency.

The Board of Commissioners generally meets on the 4th Thursday of the month from 3-5pm (agenda packets available here). Videos of recent meetings have been posted to their facebook page here. There was a special meeting earlier in January for a closed session, but in the last few minutes, director Northern welcomed the new Commissioner from the City of Champaign, Bailee VanAntwerp.

The regular January meeting (agenda) was split up into two videos on either side of a closed session dealing with employment issues. The public portions are available here, with approving minutes and reports, and here, where they approved the new interim Executive Director, Lily Walton.

Joe Galvan gave public comments as a former regional administrator for HUD. He described the pleasure it was working with the outgoing director and heaped praise and thanks on him and his team at the HACC.

Northern's final report as director is available in the agenda packet here on pages 11-14 of the PDF. The Operations Report following that has a lot of details on the HACC programs, including the YouthBuild program in the news recently. WCIA had a short blurb on the YouthBuild program last month:

YouthBuild was founded by the Housing Authority of Champaign County to help at-risk youth earn a high school diploma and find good jobs.

Recent graduates earned not only high school diplomas, but also OSHA, Flaggers, and NCCER certifications. These certifications help graduates successfully land jobs directly following graduation.

John Taylor II, a now-graduate from Youthbuild, said he is thankful for the staff and other students at Youthbuild for taking the time to get to know him. He said he plans to work for Youthbuild in the future to “help kids like him,” who “want to better themselves.”

HACC Executive Director David Northern said they are actively recruiting participants for the spring. Applications for the program can be found on the HACC website.

Full blurb and video segment here. HACC YouthBuild web page and link to applications here.

There were also updates on the HACC's reentry programs for some of the unique housing challenges for those dealing with the criminal justice system on page 23 of the agenda packet. Snippet:

More information available at the websites of First Followers Reentry and WIN Recovery.