Housing survey being conducted to assess needs

MONTROSE — Just two minutes. That’s all it should take to have your views about affordable housing known.

The Montrose County Housing Authority is conducting a housing needs assessment with grant money from the Colorado Division of Housing.

The contractor, Community Strategies Institute, is conducting interviews with a variety of service providers, landlords, lending institutions and even the homeless, to assess the needs in Montrose County.

A critical part of the assessment is a brief survey — just 29 questions — that anyone can fill out online.

“We’re putting a lot of effort into having members of the community fill out the survey,” Montrose County Housing Authority Executive Director Tim Heavers said. “It’s a very easy survey to take. There’s some good questions in there about how the community feels about housing and where the needs are.”

Survey questions include annual income, whether a person owns or rents a home, whether homes are adequate for special needs, or close enough to services for the disabled, and whether the person taking the survey believes illegal immigration is affecting the availability of affordable housing.

More than 300 people had taken the survey as of Thursday, Heavers said. “Boy, I’d love it if we could get 1,000. Then we would know we have a good cross-section of the community.”

The housing authority hopes that by having the survey available online, more people will participate. The greater the participation, the more accurate and helpful the results will be, Heavers said.

“What we’re finding is a lot of people have access to computers and it doesn’t matter what their income strata is.”

The survey is the first since 2003.

“I think it’s also timely because of the nature of the economy. It should be real beneficial,” Heavers said. “We’re even holding off doing other projects so we can tailor what we do in the future to the outcome of this needs assessment.”

The survey also dovetails into a five-year plan the housing authority is required to produce for the federal Housing and Urban Development department.

“The needs assessment is like a shoe-fit into that. That will really help steer our board in the right direction, we feel,” Heavers said.

The survey can be taken by visiting www.montrosehousingauthority.com (click on “Survey”)or www.montrosecounty.net (click on “Most Requested”).

Hard copies are available at the housing authority office, 222 Hap Court in Olathe, and at the county administration building, 161 S. Townsend Ave. in Montrose. The housing authority office also has a computer available so people can take the survey online.

The deadline is March 15.