(Radio Iowa) – Cedar Falls leaders are setting up an affordable housing trust fund which would allow the city to access some 200-thousand dollars in state aid. Brian Schoon, executive director of the Iowa Northland Regional Council of Governments, says a housing assessment that was done in Cedar Falls late last year spurred the city to act.  “People knew the need was there, but it just didn’t rise to the level of bringing people to the table,” Schoon says. “Now the City of Cedar Falls knows from that study where some of the needs are.”

Cedar Falls was one of the last communities in the state -without- such a fund. He says the city hopes the new nonprofit organization will be fully up and running by January of next year.

“They’re going to have to look at projects that would be categorized as the affordability side of things,” Schoon says. “That was one of the things that jumped up in the housing needs assessment was the cost of housing, the cost of land, the cost of development.” Schoon says the nonprofit will mainly focus on driving living costs down.