By Sophie Pappas
Rising utility costs and more expensive housing – these were on the minds of the council members at the Aug. 4 meeting of the Zionsville Town Council.
“Over the years we’ve seen an increase … from where we’ve been and where we are now,” said the council’s elected clerk/treasure, John Yeo.
Yeo, a resident of Zionsville for more than two decades, said that his office of the treasuring has seen a dramatic increase in the public requests for relief funds. According to Yeo, these funds are distributed to Zionsville residents who are in need of help paying their bills.
“We’ve seen an increase in the amount of public assistance we provide the town,” he said again. “People have to qualify for this assistance. We are kind of their last hope when it comes to helping pay their bills.”
Yeo said that this year, the normal amount of $50,000 for the Direct Relief Fund is not enough. He asked that the council increase this amount by $15,000. The council approved this amount and designated $7,500 towards shelter and housing monies, and $7,500 towards utility monies.
Council woman Susana Suarez asked Yeo if the rise in relief fund requests will stabilize in the future, to which Yeo said he does not believe the requests or the needs will stabilize.
“I don’t see it stabilizing,” he said. “[There are] utility increases, housing increases … And what really put us over the hill this year was the weather we had.”
Severe weather and winter storms increases the need for heating, costs which many people in Zionsville could not keep up with. Yeo said this also is a direct reflection of the many new apartment complexes having been built.
“People move into town,” Yeo said. “As we grow, [the Direct Relief Fund]is going to need to grow.”
Suarez recommended that in the future, the council should consider automatically appropriating more money to this fund, and in a sense make the process simpler for the treasury department to ask for more relief money. She called this a “fund with … more flexibility.”
“With these kinds of trends I think we need to look at this line item in a different way,” she said.
