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Tina Sawyer: A number of community foundations are partnering with the Northern Michigan Community Action Agency or NMCAA to provide aid to those impacted by the ice storm in March. WCMU’s David Nicholas spoke with Tish Stave, who's the director of the Housing and Energy Efficiencies Department at the NMCAA, to learn more about how people can receive financial assistance for home and property repairs.
David Nicholas: I wonder, first of all, Tish, if you could tell us how the collaborative effort came together, it's your organization and a number of other Northern Michigan community foundations. How did all this partnership come in to be?
Tish Stave: NMCAA we've been around for 50 plus years. We have a lot of great partners within our communities and as a Community Action agency, when we see a need arise, we are poised and ready to respond to it. So after the ice storm, we have several board members who are from the northern region of our territory. We heard them speak about the traumas that they went through, the property damage that they've seen, just the havoc that was wreaked on that area, and knew that we wanted to jump in and be part of the solution because that's just who we are. So, our fund development director reached out to some contacts that she had with local foundations, and just talked about, hey, we see this need, is this something that you can help us address and just kind of went from there.
DN: Then does your organization now serve as kind of the lead hub for collecting the funds in total before it's distributed to the contractors to go ahead and do the work?
TS: Yeah, so we take applications from the clients, community members who say, hey, we need assistance. We have a very short application. We collect one month of income just to make sure that they're within the eligibility guidelines. We have them attest that this property damage was in fact because of the ice storm, and once we approve that, yes, this is an eligible Community member. We either, they may come to us, with bids that they have from contractors already or they may not even know where to start. So, we can help and walk them through getting some bids from local contractors and then getting contracts in place and paying for the assistance once it's done.
DN: How sustainable do you think then the funding will be available? Is there a collection time that you're looking to for a short term, a long-term deadline to apply, when you would hope to have the work done? Or, given the ongoing nature, what is sort of the timeline you've got set up for this?
TS: So right now, so we were granted $45,000 for the home repair needs. We do have some funding through Huntington Bank, also for some needs that might not fall within those categories. So, all-in-all, we've got, some, a good pool of funds here and we will spend it until it is not there anymore and possibly apply for more if we see the demand is still there, but we have plenty of funding on hand, so I would encourage anybody who thinks they may be eligible to give us a call. We received the funding through the Charlevoix County Community Foundation, Petoskey Harbor Springs Area Community Foundation and the Great Lakes Energy People Fund. So, that is the funding that they have granted to us to carry out the home repair and property repair.
DN: How open are they to the idea that that you may be coming back and asking for additional funding to continue this work?
TS: Well, we have really open conversations with them about what the need looks like and I think they would be open to it. I don't know if the funding will be there, but we have really open and back and forth conversations. So, I believe it's a possibility.
Tina Sawyer: Tish Stave is with the Northern Michigan Community Action Agency. She spoke with WCMU’s David Nicholas, and questions about applications or eligibility can be answered by calling 231-947-3780 or visit nmcaa.net. That's 231-947-3780, and nmcaa.net.
