Village of Coal City celebrates rehabbed house thanks to grant program

COAL CITY – The Village of Coal City and the Grundy County Chamber celebrated a newly renovated home on Route 113 that came to be thanks to federal, state and local grant money to help improve local communities.

On May 25 city officials, Chamber staff and volunteers, and organization leaders gathered for a ribbon cutting at Wendy Huston’s home, which was newly renovated through the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunities Housing Rehabilitation Grant. This grant is utilized for qualifying single-family residences within a specific program area, Coal City Village Administrator Matt Fritz said. The Village of Coal City provided the first $15,000 of local match along with additional matches of $5,000 from the Community Foundation of Grundy County and $46,000 from Kendall/Grundy Action’s Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program to leverage an additional $450,000 from the federal government administered by DCEO. North Central Illinois Council of Governments administered the grant and Singer Construction worked on the home.

“The project assisted 10 qualified Coal City residents within the defined program area,” Fritz said. “Of these participating homeowners, seven of them qualified for the DCEO funding bearing a maximum expenditure of $50,000 and three of them qualified for LIHEAP funding in addition to the DCEO Housing Rehabilitation funding resulting in over $50,000 being spent at each of these homes.”

The qualifying area for the program was east of South Broadway and west of the tracks with boundaries on the south end at Pine Street and Division Street on the north. The Village worked with the partner agencies to allow qualifying residents to receive over $500,000 in direct contract funding to rehabilitate their homes. These residents must stay in their homes for the next five years; the purpose of the program is to enable low income residents to stay in their existing home longer rather than simply add value to their home and resell the property.

“These projects are a great example of our municipalities and local organizations working together to better our community and to continue to create a wonderful quality of life,” Chamber President & CEO Christina Van Yperen said.

Coal City has applied to DCEO to repeat this success in 2023 attempting to get an area north of Division and east of Lincoln Avenue to qualify as its next program. Success relies upon the residents within these program areas to participate.

For more information on the program contact the Village of Coal City at 815-634-8608.