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Bloomington Housing Authority director announces retirement as agency outlines growth and rising costs
Summary
BHA Executive Director Kate Gazounis said she will retire in January and outlined plans to add roughly 50 housing units, expand in‑house navigator services to boost voucher success, and contend with a sharp spike in insurance costs that may push next year’s coverage near $1.5 million.
Kate Gazounis, executive director of the Bloomington Housing Authority, told the City Council she has submitted her resignation and will retire in January: “I’m retiring at the January, and I’m gonna go be a full time grandmother.” Gazounis used her budget presentation to summarize BHA’s near‑term priorities and fiscal pressures.
Gazounis said the authority is preparing an updated five‑year plan for HUD and is targeting about 50 new housing units next year, including 38 units associated with a hospital site and 10 units on city‑provided land in the Arlington Park area. She described a small project to add three two‑bedroom apartments above an early‑learning childcare facility and said the BHA is formalizing an internship program in partnership with Indiana University.
On operations, Gazounis said the authority manages 1,696 housing vouchers and has paid roughly $14 million to landlords this year. She reported program details including 50 VASH vouchers and 12 single‑resident occupancy vouchers, and said emergency housing vouchers for people experiencing homelessness have declined from 28 to 20. Gazounis said the average subsidy is “just under $800 a unit,” and she credited a new in‑house navigator — started with an ARPA grant — with improving voucher leasing success from about 60% historically to roughly 70% more recently.
Gazounis warned of a large, unexpected increase in insurance costs tied to the authority’s mortgage and investor requirements. She said an 18% budgeted increase had been projected but that marketplace changes pushed the premium much higher: “I have initially budgeted for an 18% increase, and it went up by a 130%… I am looking at perhaps, hoping that it will go from $775,000 to about 1,500,000.” She said the authority is talking with a community development financial institution to explore alternatives to the commercial insurance market.
Council members asked for clarification about a mismatch between memo language and tabulated figures on insurance increases; Gazounis said she and the finance director would reconcile the numbers. The presentation closed with brief council and public appreciation for Gazounis’s leadership ahead of her retirement.
Gazounis’s presentation did not include a formal vote; next steps for BHA’s budget figures and the authority’s five‑year HUD plan will be handled through staff follow‑up and future council budget hearings.
