October 27, 2025 • 7 mins
Louisville Housing Authority director Elizabeth Strojan came home from living in New York City to help Mayor Craig Greenberg improve the city's affordable housing shortage. It's a massive job but Elizabeth discusses the many ways that housing situations are improving for the area's low income residents.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You know, sometimes we call the children back to the
flock they leave Louisville. We always say there's.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
A brain dread. What we're gonna do is a brain drain.
Will we got to bring back some of our superstars.
Craig Greenberg is the mayor of this city and occasionally
he's had to make a few phone calls to put
people in place. Well, let's meet your local hero, your
Louisville Metro Housing Authority leader. And that's Elizabeth Strojan, who
grew up here and then ran away for a while.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Welcome home, Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
I'm happy to be here with you, and I'm really
really happy to be back in Louisville.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
So you grew up around here and then you thought
to yourself, I need to see this big, fancy world,
and now you realize this is where the heart.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Is, best place. I saw the whole world, and I
was like, Louisville's in I'm coming back.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Is there an open house tomorrow? Did I read that?
Did your buddy Jalen send me a text and say
there's a big open house coming here.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
There's a huge event tomorrow morning at ten am at
the Baxter Community Center. We are celebrating the redevelopment of
Beecher Terrace. Can you come, good work, You're gonna be there.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah, I gotta check tomorrow's schedule. I am a busy person,
but I may swing by. There are there free bananas
and donuts.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Whatever you want.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Wait, you are the PASTI listen, but.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
We'll make it happen. We're so excited.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
If you're a Southern slash Midwestern girl, you understand people
love treats. That's just how that works. Let's talk about
what's happened at beech Or Terrace.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Yeah, so more than ten years ago, we got our
first grant from hud called Choice Neighborhood, and we said,
we want to redevelop the housing here. We had public
housing that was not in great shape. But more than that,
we want to bring amenities to the community. So fast
forward to ten years later for Choice Neighborhood grants. Later,
two hundred million dollars invested in that community. We have
(01:43):
over six hundred housing units, we have a new park,
and we have a beautifully renovated Baxter Community Center. So
tomorrow at ten am, come on over, everybody, We're going
to have a big party. We're going to hear some speeches.
We're gonna have a little resource fair. We're going to
look around and look at all the good changes we
brought there.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
The government's in a shutdown mode right now. What does
this mean? By the way, let me do on a
side here. I got a check back from the US
Treasury on Friday. I was like, dude, I had no
idea this was happening.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Who sent it to you?
Speaker 1 (02:12):
The Irs? The IRS sent me a note a month
ago and it said, day, we like you, but you
seem to be a few thousand dollars short of your
tax thing or whatever when we sent it in a
few months ago. And I was like, that is incorrect
because I sent this and then I got a refund check.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Good for you.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
On Friday, it was like, the government is working in
some capacities.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Well, LMHA is certainly still up and running. But we
are ninety percent federally funded. So we serve thirty thousand louivillions,
many of whom have very low incomes other obstacles to housing.
We get ninety percent of our funding from the FEDS.
So this, this shutdown makes a lot of people very nervous.
I will say that as of now, where business as
usual at LMHA. We've paid landlords. There're Section eight portions
(02:56):
for October, we'll pay in November, We'll pay in December.
After that, I'm not sure, but hopefully it doesn't drag
on that long.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Yeah, I'm starting to hear some signs that there's a
little crack in the wind in the window for this
now to I think this is Saturday, November first, That
sounds right. I think there's you know how all this
stuff is all puppeteering. Absolutely, these guys are. I talked
to these various elected officials and like, well, wink wink,
you know something. So I think that's coming. But nonetheless,
(03:27):
you do pay those Section eight a couple months in advance,
or at least you have the money.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yeah, we will have the money from HUD. They've told
us we'll have the money. So for right now, it's
business as usual. All of our developments are operating as normal. Well,
we're able to make payroll. But it's it's really a lot,
and people are very nervous.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Of course they have to be. Let's talk about Oscar
Manor and what's going on there and where are we
in the middle of that? Situation.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Well, as you know, Oscar Mannor was a bad news
story for a very long time, people living in not
great conditions and really no plan from the agency for
how to turn it around. So we started relocating people
from Oscar. We have fewer than one hundred residents remaining.
They're moving into the private market or into other public
housing units that we manage, and they're all moving with
(04:14):
a lot of resources attached so they get a good
fresh start when they move into their new home. So
we are actually working with Happy Home Furniture Bank in Jeffersonville,
Indiana to help make sure that people moving out of
Oscar who need new furniture, maybe they had some kind
of infestation, they need to leave things behind. We want
to make sure that they have what they need as
(04:34):
they move on. So if folks listening are able to
help donate so that not just Oscar residents but other
people in Louisville and need have what they need in
terms of furniture, you can visit Happy Home Furniture fb
dot org and you can donate directly there. And then
the plan is to redevelop new, safe, quality, affordable housing
(04:55):
at OSCAR, and we're on track to.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Do that excellent, Yeah, because that was a distressing story
to see the conditions some of those folks were living in.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Good, well, I'm glad you're in here to help nudge
all that along too. What about overall housing here in
this community? Are we way short on what's needed or
way short?
Speaker 3 (05:17):
And the biggest shortage, the biggest gap in what we
need is for the lowest income louavilions, So that means,
you know, some people who are unable to work. LMHA
serves a lot of the lowest income louavillions and we
have a lot of work to do to get our
properties back on track. But we're also talking about certified
nursing assistance. We're talking about home health AIDS, We're talking
(05:38):
about bus attendants, we're talking about teachers AIDS, people who
work jobs that are crucial to our community but who
don't make enough to pay in this crazy housing market.
So that's why Mayor Greenberg has announced a big initiative
to build fifteen thousand new affordable units in a very
short period of time, and it sounds like he's doing
(05:58):
pretty good on that.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
But it's a matter of making sure you find the
resourcing to do all that, right.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
If you're not going to be able to charge rents
that cover the cost of operating, you have to have
the financing lined up in the beginning. So you have
to have some kind of resources, whether it's from the
state in terms of tax credits or from the city
or state or FEDS in terms of a subsidy. You
have to keep the cost of debt down and you
have to have enough money to fund construction upfront because
(06:25):
you're not going to be able to make it back
in rents later. So the only difference is how it's financed.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
So city halls behind you. Does that mean metro council
is as well? That is that part of the process.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Yeah, Metro Council approves the budget. They work with the
executive on the budget, and so they are responsible along
with the mayor's team, of figuring out how much funding
the Louisville Affordable Housing Trust Fund, for example, gets in
terms of the city appropriation. So everybody's involved, every level
of government, every branch of government has to work and you.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Go shake in Howdy and Frankfort as well to help
with that.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Well, right now, the state doesn't give us any funding,
but I would like to say that would be nice,
if that'd be nice. But the state does have a
housing finance agency. It's called the Kentucky Housing Corporation. They
work out of the Governor's office. It's a quasi governmental entity,
and they've been very kind to LMHA. They've been very
helpful in getting us the resources we need to help
(07:19):
redevelop our properties.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Welcome home, Elizabeth, thank you all right again. The open
house is tomorrow, winn and.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Where tomorrow morning, So that's October twenty eighth at ten
am at the Baxter Community Center in Beecher Terrace.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Just letting people know we're getting things done.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
We're just getting things done, and we got a party
about it. Sometimes you got to take a step back
and have a good time.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Elizabeth Strojan, she runs the Louisville Metro Housing Authority. And
I'm so glad that you came home. See family.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Wa it should be we're all coming to your house
for thanks coming over back in a few on news
radio Waight forty whas
You know, sometimes we call the children back to the
flock they leave Louisville. We always say there's.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
A brain dread. What we're gonna do is a brain drain.
Will we got to bring back some of our superstars.
Craig Greenberg is the mayor of this city and occasionally
he's had to make a few phone calls to put
people in place. Well, let's meet your local hero, your
Louisville Metro Housing Authority leader. And that's Elizabeth Strojan, who
grew up here and then ran away for a while.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Welcome home, Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
I'm happy to be here with you, and I'm really
really happy to be back in Louisville.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
So you grew up around here and then you thought
to yourself, I need to see this big, fancy world,
and now you realize this is where the heart.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Is, best place. I saw the whole world, and I
was like, Louisville's in I'm coming back.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Is there an open house tomorrow? Did I read that?
Did your buddy Jalen send me a text and say
there's a big open house coming here.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
There's a huge event tomorrow morning at ten am at
the Baxter Community Center. We are celebrating the redevelopment of
Beecher Terrace. Can you come, good work, You're gonna be there.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah, I gotta check tomorrow's schedule. I am a busy person,
but I may swing by. There are there free bananas
and donuts.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Whatever you want.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Wait, you are the PASTI listen, but.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
We'll make it happen. We're so excited.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
If you're a Southern slash Midwestern girl, you understand people
love treats. That's just how that works. Let's talk about
what's happened at beech Or Terrace.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Yeah, so more than ten years ago, we got our
first grant from hud called Choice Neighborhood, and we said,
we want to redevelop the housing here. We had public
housing that was not in great shape. But more than that,
we want to bring amenities to the community. So fast
forward to ten years later for Choice Neighborhood grants. Later,
two hundred million dollars invested in that community. We have
(01:43):
over six hundred housing units, we have a new park,
and we have a beautifully renovated Baxter Community Center. So
tomorrow at ten am, come on over, everybody, We're going
to have a big party. We're going to hear some speeches.
We're gonna have a little resource fair. We're going to
look around and look at all the good changes we
brought there.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
The government's in a shutdown mode right now. What does
this mean? By the way, let me do on a
side here. I got a check back from the US
Treasury on Friday. I was like, dude, I had no
idea this was happening.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Who sent it to you?
Speaker 1 (02:12):
The Irs? The IRS sent me a note a month
ago and it said, day, we like you, but you
seem to be a few thousand dollars short of your
tax thing or whatever when we sent it in a
few months ago. And I was like, that is incorrect
because I sent this and then I got a refund check.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Good for you.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
On Friday, it was like, the government is working in
some capacities.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Well, LMHA is certainly still up and running. But we
are ninety percent federally funded. So we serve thirty thousand louivillions,
many of whom have very low incomes other obstacles to housing.
We get ninety percent of our funding from the FEDS.
So this, this shutdown makes a lot of people very nervous.
I will say that as of now, where business as
usual at LMHA. We've paid landlords. There're Section eight portions
(02:56):
for October, we'll pay in November, We'll pay in December.
After that, I'm not sure, but hopefully it doesn't drag
on that long.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Yeah, I'm starting to hear some signs that there's a
little crack in the wind in the window for this
now to I think this is Saturday, November first, That
sounds right. I think there's you know how all this
stuff is all puppeteering. Absolutely, these guys are. I talked
to these various elected officials and like, well, wink wink,
you know something. So I think that's coming. But nonetheless,
(03:27):
you do pay those Section eight a couple months in advance,
or at least you have the money.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yeah, we will have the money from HUD. They've told
us we'll have the money. So for right now, it's
business as usual. All of our developments are operating as normal. Well,
we're able to make payroll. But it's it's really a lot,
and people are very nervous.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Of course they have to be. Let's talk about Oscar
Manor and what's going on there and where are we
in the middle of that? Situation.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Well, as you know, Oscar Mannor was a bad news
story for a very long time, people living in not
great conditions and really no plan from the agency for
how to turn it around. So we started relocating people
from Oscar. We have fewer than one hundred residents remaining.
They're moving into the private market or into other public
housing units that we manage, and they're all moving with
(04:14):
a lot of resources attached so they get a good
fresh start when they move into their new home. So
we are actually working with Happy Home Furniture Bank in Jeffersonville,
Indiana to help make sure that people moving out of
Oscar who need new furniture, maybe they had some kind
of infestation, they need to leave things behind. We want
to make sure that they have what they need as
(04:34):
they move on. So if folks listening are able to
help donate so that not just Oscar residents but other
people in Louisville and need have what they need in
terms of furniture, you can visit Happy Home Furniture fb
dot org and you can donate directly there. And then
the plan is to redevelop new, safe, quality, affordable housing
(04:55):
at OSCAR, and we're on track to.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Do that excellent, Yeah, because that was a distressing story
to see the conditions some of those folks were living in.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Good, well, I'm glad you're in here to help nudge
all that along too. What about overall housing here in
this community? Are we way short on what's needed or
way short?
Speaker 3 (05:17):
And the biggest shortage, the biggest gap in what we
need is for the lowest income louavilions, So that means,
you know, some people who are unable to work. LMHA
serves a lot of the lowest income louavillions and we
have a lot of work to do to get our
properties back on track. But we're also talking about certified
nursing assistance. We're talking about home health AIDS, We're talking
(05:38):
about bus attendants, we're talking about teachers AIDS, people who
work jobs that are crucial to our community but who
don't make enough to pay in this crazy housing market.
So that's why Mayor Greenberg has announced a big initiative
to build fifteen thousand new affordable units in a very
short period of time, and it sounds like he's doing
(05:58):
pretty good on that.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
But it's a matter of making sure you find the
resourcing to do all that, right.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
If you're not going to be able to charge rents
that cover the cost of operating, you have to have
the financing lined up in the beginning. So you have
to have some kind of resources, whether it's from the
state in terms of tax credits or from the city
or state or FEDS in terms of a subsidy. You
have to keep the cost of debt down and you
have to have enough money to fund construction upfront because
(06:25):
you're not going to be able to make it back
in rents later. So the only difference is how it's financed.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
So city halls behind you. Does that mean metro council
is as well? That is that part of the process.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Yeah, Metro Council approves the budget. They work with the
executive on the budget, and so they are responsible along
with the mayor's team, of figuring out how much funding
the Louisville Affordable Housing Trust Fund, for example, gets in
terms of the city appropriation. So everybody's involved, every level
of government, every branch of government has to work and you.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Go shake in Howdy and Frankfort as well to help
with that.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Well, right now, the state doesn't give us any funding,
but I would like to say that would be nice,
if that'd be nice. But the state does have a
housing finance agency. It's called the Kentucky Housing Corporation. They
work out of the Governor's office. It's a quasi governmental entity,
and they've been very kind to LMHA. They've been very
helpful in getting us the resources we need to help
(07:19):
redevelop our properties.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Welcome home, Elizabeth, thank you all right again. The open
house is tomorrow, winn and.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Where tomorrow morning, So that's October twenty eighth at ten
am at the Baxter Community Center in Beecher Terrace.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Just letting people know we're getting things done.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
We're just getting things done, and we got a party
about it. Sometimes you got to take a step back
and have a good time.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Elizabeth Strojan, she runs the Louisville Metro Housing Authority. And
I'm so glad that you came home. See family.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Wa it should be we're all coming to your house
for thanks coming over back in a few on news
radio Waight forty whas
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