(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Department of Health and Human Services plans to sell some of its land at all five of its state-owned facilities. H-H-S owns and operates mental health institutions in Cherokee and Independence, the Boys State Training School in Eldora, and the Woodward and Glenwood Resource Centers. Glenwood is slated to close next year. H-H-S Director Kelly Garcia says one reason they’re selling some of the land at the Cherokee facility is to help address that area’s housing crisis. “We’ve had a few team members where we’ve tried to recruit moving from out of state and they cannot move because there is zero housing,” Garcia says.

Like many Iowa communities, affordable housing is at a premium and these parcels of land should both bring a good price and create new places to build. “We had already been thinking about really making sure we’re not holding on to land and parcels that we don’t need to anymore,” she says, “but also being good stewards of the sale of that property.”

Garcia says the department plans to host a town hall meeting in Cherokee on Wednesday about the sale. Land surveys are already complete and the properties should be on the market soon.