More than $2 million in federal economic stimulus money has come to the Housing Authority of Bowling Green, to be used in buying and renovating foreclosed houses, and the housing authority board made preparations Wednesday to spend it rapidly.

“We’re going to be hustling in the next few months to get this up and going,” said Katie Miller, grants manager. A million dollars of the $2.1 million approved under the Neighborhood Stabilization Program must be spent by January, and it must all be spent by June 30, she said. The goal of the stimulus fund is to generate new jobs quickly.

Related to that, the authority board voted to open a $500,000 line of credit and checking account at South Central Bank. In order to provide the credit line at 4 percent interest, the bank requested that it get all transactions related to this stimulus program, housing authority Executive Director Abraham Williams said.

“We’re running the whole $2 million through that bank,” he said.

Window bid

Meanwhile, an earlier round of stimulus money is on its way out the door – or, more precisely, the window. The board accepted a $195,203.66 bid from Capitol Window & Door for more energy-efficient replacement windows in the authority’s Summit View apartment complex. That’s the second phase of a project to retrofit housing authority units with new windows, another federal economic stimulus-funded project, said Modernization Coordinator Dale Eichelberger.

To get the work done before cold weather sets in, the authority is hiring two more work crews to install the windows – and there’s a large pool to choose from, Williams said.

“We’re having a lot of contractors call us who can’t find work,” he said.

Application question

The housing authority’s application will soon bear a new question, asking whether any member of the household has to register as a sex offender. Anyone caught lying about that can be thrown out, said Judy Jewell, project manager.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is asking all housing authorities to add that to their housing applications, Jewell said. But it’s something the Housing Authority of Bowling Green already does, requiring background checks on all new residents, she said. There are no known sex offenders living in the authority’s apartments now, Jewell said.