Sen. Moran stops in Salina to speak at housing conference

The Kansas chapter of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials kicked off its fall conference Monday afternoon at the Courtyard Marriott in Salina with a few words from Sen. Jerry Moran.

This year’s edition of the Kansas NAHRO conference, that runs through Wednesday, celebrates an in-person return to the yearly festivities, that include award presentations and informational classes.

Moran stated that his purpose for making an appearance was to learn from the dozens of representatives across the state about how he could help them progress through the housing problems in Kansas.

The U.S. Senate is currently out of session, allowing the senator to make stops around the state and have conversations with people regarding the needs of those that need housing.

“It is a conversation that I’ll have with a mayor, if I’m walking through a business, it could be the plant manager, it could be the chamber of commerce executive, it could be the economic development director for a county,” Moran said. “But the continual plea is, ‘If we only had more housing, we could create greater opportunities for people in our community.’”

He described his disdain with the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s bureaucratic manner of function, as the senator serves on the Banking, Housing and Urban Development committee that holds jurisdiction over the HUD and received applause with those statements.

Regardless, Moran went on to ask for specific examples from those in attendance that he could reference in trying to use the influence he possesses with the HUD to get what Kansas housing authorities want and need.

Sherry Swendson, of the Atchison Housing Authority, expressed her frustration with the lack of cooperation between federal organizations in trying to administer Section 8 housing.

“We have a payment standard, but that does not match up to the accrued tax credit properties’ fair market rent,” Swendson said. “I think how to resolve that would be a piece of legislation allowing a housing authority or whoever’s administering a Section 8 program to adopt an equalized standard.”

Swendson said the issue that arises from this imbalance is that vouchers are underutilized because the authorities can’t find affordable housing.

State of housing

Apart from his comments as the keynote speaker at the conference’s opening luncheon, Moran gave his thoughts on how people around the state have informed him of the current housing situation.

“There are other examples in Salina and every (other) community of the mayor, a plant manager, the owner of a business who will say, ‘More housing means I could hire more people, and I need more people,’” the senator said. “’There’s no place for anybody to live here.’”

One of the factors contributing to the ongoing problem is the drastic increase in housing prices, due to the high demand in relation to available homes. 

He added that he asked the U.S. Secretary of Commerce to form a roundtable discussion centering on bringing down the cost of lumber and therefore decreasing the cost of building homes, which did later result in a meeting between him, the secretary, and others in the home-building industry.

Overall, he said the solution to addressing the housing crisis that is “worse than it’s been in a long time” is to increase the supply of homes at a price that people can afford.