(The Center Square) – South Dakota’s Housing Development Authority does not have enough money to meet the state’s housing goals, according to Executive Director Chas Olson.
Olson told members of the Government Operations and Audit Committee Friday that the agency has no concrete numbers on the statewide housing need.
While the program helped an estimated 224 households in 2023, Olson said the total funds requested exceeded the available funds, which has been the case every year since HOF was created, according to the report.
“There was $2 million in excess applications that did not get funded in fiscal year 2023,” said Olson.
SD Housing sets aside 75% of funding for housing development and 25% for program funding.
“We primarily think that the intent of this program is to develop housing,” Olson said.
The HOF promotes economic development through supplying affordable housing for low- and moderate-income families.
The state appropriated over $1 million to the HOF in 2023. SD Housing contributed $1.5 million. A total of $3.8 million was awarded by SD Housing in fiscal year 2023, according to the report.
When Sen. Reynold Nesiba, D-Sioux Falls, asked whether the agency had enough money to meet the state’s housing goals, Olsen said it did not.
“The short answer is no. We always have more applications submitted than we have available funding,” said Olson.
Nesiba asked for details on where South Dakota’s housing shortage was the greatest.
“The shortage is everywhere,” Olson said. “It’s easy to say there’s a housing shortage on our tribal areas, in our rural areas, you just don’t have the activity on the contracting side for really not a lot of developers going into those rural areas to develop it. Most of that’s kind of focused on Sioux Falls, Rapid City, your other larger cities, but that’s also not to say there’s not a giant need there because those are our largest growing communities so without being able to directly answer that question, I think that the need is everywhere.”
Olson said without a needs analysis, he was unable to give hard numbers on where South Dakota sits in terms of housing supply.
“What would it take to do that sort of needs analysis for the state?” Nesiba asked.
Olson said doing a housing needs analysis has been discussed and was “certainly something to look into if there was a desire for that,” but added it would cost money and resources.
“Given how much focus we’ve had on workforce housing in the last several years, I think that there would be an interest in at least having that conversation,” said Nesiba.
Olson said he would work to get an estimate on how much it would cost to get a statewide analysis done and return that information to lawmakers to inform decisions during the next legislative session.
