FORM A – Community Needs Form: Must be limited to one page

Must be complete Must include Housing Needs

(Include how these needs were determined, including if a formal assessment

instrument was used – if so, what tool was used?)

The City of St. John is home to 1318 citizens in South West Kansas. St. John is a clean, friendly community that is always looking for ways to improve the quality of life for our citizens. Our mission statement is as follows: As a beautiful, rural, residential city, St. John is committed to strive for excellence by partnering with its citizens to achieve their dreams, while creating a positive, proactive community spirit, with courteous and efficient services, an excellent quality of life, and safety for all. This statement was developed after a series of community meetings. At these meetings, citizens discussed the needs they perceived, and all were written on large sheets of paper. Each citizen was given ten stickers that they could place on the needs they felt were most important. The needs were then ranked in order of the most stickers. Some of the needs were projects that could be accomplished quickly, and many of them were. What remained were the broad needs that require more than a quick solution, and many of which are on going. The governing body, city staff and citizens have begun programs to satisfy most of these needs; however, we need assistance for the rehabilitation of housing. The governing body reviews the lists of needs periodically. The needs that were identified are as follows:

1. Need a community that is attractive to prospective citizens.

2. Need to provide adequate commercial businesses for our citizens locally.

3. Need to have recreational activities for our citizens and visitors.

4. Need to provide mechanisms for improving neighborhoods and other areas of town.

5. Need to provide safe neighborhoods.

6. Need to have affordable and appealing housing options for all income levels.

7. Need to utilize the resources of the city to ensure dollars are spent effectively and provide for the future.

8. Need to maintain the infrastructure of the city, such as streets, sidewalks and utility systems.

Over the years, the community has invested many dollars to update and beautify our city, making it attractive to prospective citizens. Community members joined together and were successful in obtaining designation as a “Kansas Main Street City”. St. John is the smallest city to receive that designation. For the past three years, this program has been working in St. John, and we are hoping that it will help the commercial businesses that we already have, and will attract new businesses. The city council invested in excess of $200,000 to revitalize the downtown, with the help of a CDBG Downtown Revitalization Grant. St. John once again showed its individuality by designing a streetscape unlike any other in the state. Over the past four years, more than $100,000 has been invested in the parks in St. John, including a new skateboard park and a new shelter house near the ball diamond. The youth of our community joined together, met with the council and requested the skateboard park, once again demonstrating the involvement of the citizens with the future of our city. This answered part of the recreational activity needs that we had. We have also made improvements in our city pool and skating rink, and have added a new walking trail. St. John has many mechanisms for improving neighborhoods and other areas of town. One of the programs that we are really proud of is our demolition program. For the past several years, citizens have been able to pay the city $250 to have a dilapidated residential structure torn down and the lot cleaned up. As you can guess, the actual cost was significantly more than $250. The structures were burned by the local fire department and used as training. By the city covering the additional costs, citizens were able to purchase neighboring properties that were dilapidated and have them removed, thereby improving the entire neighborhood. We have removed approximately 30 structures utilizing this program. Many citizens have purchased neighboring lots and utilized the city program to clear them. The state has indicated that we may not be able to burn structures any longer, which makes this grant even more important. One large commercial structure had been a concern for quite some time. The council began legal proceedings to get the property torn down. A local citizen purchased this property and it is now being torn down. This large structure is the southern border of our target area, and it’s removal will greatly improve the neighborhood. Another method of improving neighborhoods has been the strict enforcement of city ordinances regarding nuisances, such as junk cars, weeds, unsafe structures, and health and safety violations. The city council has taken a proactive approach to enforcement, and many improvements have been made. This action has also resulted in safer neighborhoods. The city provides an annual clean up, at which time the city crews pick up items from residences in town and haul them to the landfill. This is a big help for citizens that may not have a way to haul off debris. In this time of economic crunch, our city has managed its finances well and has been able to continue programs such as sidewalk replacement and street maintenance, thereby maintaining our infrastructure. We have rebuilt our water system and purchased new generation capacity for our power plant in recent years. In addition, we have made early debt payments and restructured our remaining debt to provide adequate cash flow in the future, which will allow us to undertake more projects, such as a city-wide sidewalk program. Housing is the area where we have the most need. We have many older homes that need to be rehabilitated. We have recently passed a new landlord ordinance that will allow us to ensure that rental properties are maintained. We have many elderly, disabled, minority, and female heads-of-household that are living in residential properties that are below the standard we would like to achieve. We would like to assist those citizens by providing housing rehabilitation dollars. The citizens are very excited about this program, and have been instrumental in getting the word out. Several citizens have volunteered their time to communicate with our Hispanic population and assist them in completing the applications and translating notices. In summary, this grant would allow us to accomplish our housing goals and help our citizens achieve their dreams, which takes us back to where we started: our mission statement. If given this grant, we will work hard to make the project a huge success for our citizens and our city. We will make you proud!

Community Development Block Grant 12 2004 Annual Competition Application