A nonprofit group in Columbia will rehabilitate five houses for people with disabilities after the Columbia City Council authorised a roughly $70,000 grant.
Woodhaven, a nonprofit that assists people with disabilities, plans to improve houses by enhancing flooring, showers, bathtubs, kitchen counter tops and cupboards. The grant, which is known as the Community Development Block Grant, will use reallocated funds from the town’s fiscal 12 months 2023 finances.
Woodhaven CEO Joy Sweeney stated the character of housing people with disabilities requires the nonprofit group to improve its houses extra ceaselessly.
“There’s wheelchairs that bang into the walls and are rougher on the flooring than if it was just a family of a couple, two, three people,” Sweeney stated.
One of the residents in a house that’s deliberate to be included within the repairs, Karena Miller, could have her bathe changed due to improper water drainage that lets water into her hooked up bed room.
“It doesn’t flood it, per se, but water seeps in here,” she stated. “And then we’re like, ‘What’s this water doing in here?'”
The tasks additionally embrace ending a downstairs house in a single of the five houses scheduled for upgrades, which can enable Woodhaven to add housing for yet another individual.
“We need to put a basement bedroom in that property so that they have access, as well as a nice place to rest their head,” Sweeney stated.
Woodhaven at the moment has 43 properties throughout Columbia with about 95 residents in these houses.
Sweeney stated the leftover cash from 2023 was not utilized by different organizations, so the town supplied the cash to Woodhaven. As half of the situations of the grant, all repairs to the houses have to be accomplished by March 31, 2027.
Woodhaven has already obtained bids for the tasks and expects to full the enhancements by the top of this 12 months.
