ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
There are multiple housing programs available to help Liberal residents and as City of Liberal leadership tells it, they have seen great success this year.
“Every year, we work to put before the commission all the housing grant incentives the City of Liberal offers. All of these programs come out of the 1-cent sales tax and get paid back to citizens to help beautify Liberal and strengthen it,” Building & Code Enforcement Director Keith Bridenstine said. “Out of the nine programs, eight have been around for a while and one is new. The First Time Home Buyer Grant is a program designed to assist low- and moderate-income individuals with the purchase of their first home. For those who qualify, this pays them back $3,000 to help with closing costs. Applicants must meet the income limit, which is 125 percent of median income, and they can’t have owned a home in the last three years. This program has been utilized many times, and it’s been around for many years. There aren’t really any changes needed with this program right now. Over the past six years, we’ve averaged helping 45 applicants per year. The Home Repair Program assists qualifying homeowners of the community in enhancing, weatherizing, or repairing homes to improve the quality of buildings in the city, and that is also a $3,000 grant. A couple years ago, we did decide to include very low-income people to this program, and then last year, we decided to include veterans in order to recognize their sacrifices for our country. Over the past six years, we’ve averaged helping 67 applicants per year, and this includes work like tree trimming, emergency sewer repair, driveway repair, window repair, among other work. Qualifying applicants can use only one portion of this program this per year, and then after all three are used, you have to wait two years before applying again.”
Another long-time program that continues to see success is the Paint the Town Program, Bridenstine said.
“The Paint the Town Program allows homeowners who qualify to receive a paint voucher for the exterior beautification of homes within the city. They can then take that voucher to a store and redeem it for what they need, whether that’s paint, brushes, or whatever is necessary,” Bridenstine said. “We do require the taxes to be currently paid, and since there’s no income limit, anyone can apply for this program. However, they can’t have applied within the past five years. We did increase this last year, and we do follow up with this by getting photos and making sure the work has actually been done. Over the past six years, we’ve averaged 56 of those per year.”
New construction incentives have also seen success in town, Bridenstine said.
“The New Construction Incentive for Single Family Homes is a program to incentivize property owners to build new homes within the city limits. The incentive gets paid after a certificate of occupancy, and it goes to the owner of the property, i.e. the person who is having the home built. The incentive is $7,500 per new single-family home, and that was increased in 2024. With this, we’ve only averaged about nine per year for the past six year, and that’s gone up and down sometimes,” Bridenstine said. “The New Construction Incentive for Multi-Family Homes is mostly the same as the single-family incentive, and it’s mostly developers who use this program for duplexes, triplexes and apartment complexes. We did increase the amount last year, and it’s at $5,000 per unit. It’s a pretty good incentive and I think we need to keep it around so we can get some more apartments in town.”
Some programs have also seen updates in the past couple years, Bridenstine said.
“For years, we had the water improvement fee on water bills, and we gave senior citizens the chance to waive that off their bill. That was allowed to expire, and last year was when the $10 wastewater improvement fee started getting attached to water bills. Everyone who had the exemption for the water improvement fee was automatically switched over to this. We’ve had a few new applicants, but there are still income requirements and other criteria to meet,” Bridenstine said. “The Safe at Home Program has offered free smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors to residents of the city through the Liberal Fire Department or the Housing Department in order to increase safety factors for citizens, and that’s been around for several years now. Last year, we added NOAA weather radios since there was that tornado that hit town and the tornado sirens can’t be heard by EVERYONE in town. We’ve had a little trouble nailing down a vendor for the weather radios, but we have given some out, which people have appreciated.”
A new program will also be set to help with sidewalk installation and repair.
“Scarlette [Diseker] had come to me and we talked about this as part of the Comprehensive Plan focusing on pedestrian movement through town. Sidewalks have gone back and forth – at one point, the City was in charge of the sidewalks and then it wasn’t,” Bridenstine said. “We’ve put together a program for a sidewalk initiative to where, if a property owner – commercial or residential – is willing to have a sidewalk installed or have their sidewalk replaced, this grant would pay back some of that. The way things are set up currently, I didn’t want to just throw money at this. Any property owner can come in and apply for this and receive $1 per square foot for sidewalk installment. Like the other programs, the work will have to be done by a contractor, be installed to city specifications and meet all the other criteria. If there is no sidewalk by a property but there’s a sidewalk by the neighbor, if the property owner applies to extend that sidewalk, this program would pay $2 per square foot. There is a map in the Comprehensive Plan detailing where some of the focus will be for pedestrian movement, and if you’ve got a property adjacent to any of those spots, this program would pay $3 per square foot. I pulled some records for concrete permits, and we averaged it out to around $6 per square foot to install a concrete sidewalk. This does not apply to new commercial or residential development.”
Bridenstine said work will continue on a program introduced last year to help with fencing.
“The Fencing Program was implemented last year gives homeowners a $3,000 grant to repair or rebuild fencing. Fences within the city pose a nuisance when in disrepair, and as we’ve all heard, stray dogs within the city are a commonly complained about nuisance,” Bridenstine said. “This grant allows citizens funds to repair or install a fence of approved materials provided they adopt and register a dog from the Liberal Animal Shelter, do not exceed the income limits, and own and reside in a residence within the city, with taxes paid to current. The fencing requires sturdy material like chain-link or wood picket fencing, so people wouldn’t be able to get away with using just chicken wire or some material like that. Like the other home repair programs, we’d require the work to be done by a contractor so everyone is held accountable and we make sure the work actually gets done. Over the past year, we’ve only had one successful applicant where the fence was built and done. There’s interest, but I just don’t think this was has been advertised enough. I was hoping it would take off more, but I was happy we got at least one.”
