{"id":12521,"date":"2024-01-27T09:26:20","date_gmt":"2024-01-27T14:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=12521"},"modified":"2024-01-27T09:26:21","modified_gmt":"2024-01-27T14:26:21","slug":"bellmont-enrollment-drop-tied-in-part-to-housing-lack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/27\/bellmont-enrollment-drop-tied-in-part-to-housing-lack\/","title":{"rendered":"Bellmont enrollment drop tied, in part, to housing lack"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By BOB SHRALUKA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concerned about continually falling enrollment numbers at Bellmont high and middle schools, Decatur City Councilman Matt Dyer recently met with North Adams Superintendent Kim Hiatt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had a really good meeting, about two hours,\u201d Dyer said at the latest city council meeting. \u201cI look forward to working with them on enrollment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the last 10 years (2013-14 to 2023-24), Bellmont High has seen enrollment fall from 747 students to 610 this school year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The middle school has also trended downward in the same time, 460 students to 285.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The numbers are encouraging for the elementary school, however, rising from 627 students to 684 this school year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of it,\u201d Dyer said of the falling numbers, \u201cis economic development.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor Dan Rickord quickly agreed with that, pointing out that the city has a lack of affordable housing \u2013 a problem known by officials here for some time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said he was meeting with officials of the Housing Resource Hub, which is looking at the possibility of adding housing along the St. Marys River off First St.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rickord said a steering committee of approximately 10 people has been established by the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo it’s moving forward,\u201d Rickord added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City council recently approved a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the city, the Decatur Redevelopment Commission, and the Housing Resource Hub.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The redevelopment commission put up $50,000 to hire the Fort Wayne-based Resource Hub, which specializes in developing and implementing workforce housing strategies, housing development, and home-buyer programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Local officials would like to develop affordable housing on city-owned land off First St., from Monroe to Jefferson streets, as well as, perhaps, the city-owned parking lot off Monroe St., near the Chamber of Commerce office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officials here are moving on the subject now as they would like to get together some concrete plans to be used to seek a state READI grant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have a desperate need for apartments in Decatur, a study showed that,\u201d redevelopment officials recently told council.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com Concerned about continually falling enrollment numbers at Bellmont high and middle schools, Decatur City<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[17,14,15],"class_list":["post-12521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-community","tag-decatur","tag-featured"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/photoless-header-template-news.jpg?fit=252%2C144&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}