Louisville, KY – In 2006, Louisville Mayor Abramson committed to establish a local Affordable Housing Trust Fund to provide the community with funds to build, preserve, and rehabilitate housing that would be affordable for extremely and very low income households. Abramson included this in his 2007 Comprehensive Housing Strategy, along with $1 million in seed funding. On May 15, 2008, the Louisville Metro Council voted 25-1 to establish the Fund according to the guidelines developed by CLOUT and its allies. Efforts have continued to secure an ongoing, dedicated source of revenue for the fund. In the meantime, CLOUT also worked at the state level to gain the passage of legislation that is providing a secure and ongoing source of millions of dollars per year in funding for the Kentucky Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
In 2011, newly installed Louisville Mayor, Greg Fischer, committed to identify an ongoing dedicated source of public revenue for Louisville’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund, in order to address the ongoing problem of 25,000 families being on the city’s waiting list for affordable housing assistance.
Finally, in 2015, in response to several more years of work by CLOUT and its allies, Mayor Fischer announced the Louisville CARES initiative, which will provide an $11 million rotating loan fund to provide funding for more affordable housing in Louisville, a significant first step to providing funding needed to address this crisis.
