“Community Housing Initiatives” has become the state’s largest NON-PROFIT housing organization. Communications director Matt Hauge says people involved in a community action agency in northwest Iowa were the instigators.  “They said, you know, we provide all kinds of assistance to people. We do great programs, but there’s not enough housing up here. It’s after the Farm Crisis. Nobody’s building housing in rural Iowa,” Hauge says.

Low income housing tax credits as well as tax credits for historic preservation are used to finance the developments. A couple of decades later, the organization has built or renovated affordable housing in 31 Iowa communities. That includes projects in downtown Sioux City, Clinton and Waterloo. “We always say we have kind of a strange name. To be called ‘Community Housing Initiatives’ people like we’re maybe an office of your city or something like that,” Hauge says.

The organization’s work has yielded a total of 14-hundred apartments throughout the state, with modestly-priced rent that someone in a low-wage job can afford. Community Housing Initiatives was founded in the small town of Graettinger in 1994. The corporate offices are now in Spencer and Des Moines.

(Radio Iowa)

One expert says Iowa history will “come to life” for the state’s students because of new guidelines for social studies classes in Iowa schools. Tom Morain of Graceland University served on the advisory panel that recommended the changes. Morain recently told a group of third and fourth graders they’ll soon be exposed to a “whole new way” of learning about history. “You’re not going to just read what other people tell you happened,” Morain said. “You’re going to get to ‘do’ history. You’re going to get to go to places where history happened. You’re going to get to read what people who were living those events really thought.”

Classroom time on history has been cut as teachers focus more on reading, math and science. Morain says students can develop critical thinking skills by comparing different versions of historical events. And Iowa has a rich history to review, according to Morain. “The computer, what you hold in your hand, was invented here in Iowa,” Morain says, “and the story of how it was invented was an incredible story.”

Morain says students ARE fascinated to learn about the place they call home. “What is exciting about history as we’re going to do it now is we’re going to make it come to life,” Morain says. Morain is the former administrator of the State Historical Society and he once served as director of history at Living History Farms in Urbandale.

A recent report found Iowa has been lagging other states in providing localized history resources for teachers. The states of Minnesota and Kansas, for example, have state-paid staff who work to develop course work on state history for all grade levels. There’s even a published Minnesota history textbook. Governor Branstad says the state budget is tight and there’s unlikely to be extra money to hire more staff or spend more on an Iowa history initiative.

(Radio Iowa)

Iowa is again ranked in the top ten states for volunteerism in a report from the government agency that oversees AmeriCorps and Senior Corps. Wendy Spencer, C-E-O of the Corporation for National and Community Service, says more than 765-thousand Iowans donated their time last year, far more than the national average. “One in three Iowa residents volunteer and that’s formally through an organization, sign up, get trained,” Spencer says. “Even more volunteer, about three in four Iowans, just helping their neighbors, doing kind things on a regular basis, what we call informal volunteering.”

The Volunteering in America report ranks Iowa number-10 among the 50 states and Spencer says Iowa’s consistently been in the top-10, placing 10th last year. Volunteerism brings a huge benefit to Iowa’s communities. “We actually put a dollar figure, a value on each hour served and the 765,000 Iowa residents volunteered 75-million hours last year,” Spencer says. “That’s an economic value just shy of $2-billion, billion with a ‘b’, it’s really phenomenal.”

The programs for which Iowans volunteer are as diverse as Iowans themselves, but Spencer says there are some top beneficiaries. “The kinds of things they’re doing, they’re collecting and distributing food,” Spencer says. “These are popular activities that we find Iowans tell us they do. Fundraising for their favorite charity, raising money. Mentoring youth, which is so important today. Our youth need lots of care and nurturing and we want them to succeed, so mentoring’s important.”

The report also ranks cities and metro areas for their volunteerism. Among mid-sized cities nationwide, Iowa had two communities in the top ten: Iowa City at #4 and Cedar Rapids at #7.

(Radio Iowa)