LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — Gov. Andy Beshear believes affordable housing continues to be one of Kentucky's most important issues.
"We need more affordable housing everywhere," said Beshear after he spoke at the Kentucky Affordable Housing Conference in Lexington on Friday.
"We needed it before the natural disasters, and we will need even more of it with the economic boom that we're in. We're creating record numbers of jobs, which means we'll need more people. It's a good problem to have," he added. "But we have to respond with more housing and more affordable housing."
Beshear proposes Kentucky use some of its budget surplus to add more money to the state's affordable housing trust fund to help facilitate that.
"What that does is provide some dollars that then have to have a significant match in the private sector, but it incentivizes these programs. Many of the larger affordable housing programs and projects that have been done work with that fund," said Beshear. "So we're going to make sure we're putting dollars from the state - from our record budget surplus of $1.55 billion - we're going to take some of those funds and make sure we're building more affordable housing."
"We're also going to continue our work rebuilding in the east and in the west. We put significant state dollars already in it. Once we have the federal permits that we need, over $300 million is going to flow especially into eastern Kentucky to rebuild and build affordable housing."
