Louisville Metro Animal Services is urging residents in Strathmoore Village and on Schuff Lane to take precautions after multiple sightings of coyotes in the area recently.

Animal Control was called to the 1500 block of Schuff lane on Monday, February 18th after 6 Llamas were killed and 7 more were injured in an attack. LMAS cannot confirm whether a coyote, small dog or other animal was responsible for the attack, but residents told animal control they had seen coyotes in the area prior to the Llama attacks.

LMAS urges residents on Schuff Lane and in Strathmoor Village to be on the look-out for coyotes, and report any sighting to Animal Control by calling 502-473-PETS. 

If you encounter a coyote:
-don’t panic, run, approach or turn your back
-stand your ground and make loud noises (clap, stomp your feet, yell and wave your arms)

Take precautions:
-do not leave pet food outside
-do not leave small children unattended while outside
-do not leave pets outside and supervise them while in the yard
-do not allow your dog to chase or play with a coyote
-secure garbage containers
-stay away from pups and dens (breeding season begins around February and coyotes roam more)

For more information about what to do if you encounter a coyote, click here. 

On Thursday, February 21st the Metro Council’s Community Affairs and Housing Committee will hold a special meeting to honor outstanding residents and volunteers as part of its 17th Annual Black History Month Program.

“Reaffirming Our Diverse Culture” is the continuing theme of the program, which continues the month-long celebration of Black History in Louisville Metro.  The program begins at 12:00pm in Council Chambers, 601 West Jefferson Street.

          “Each year, the Metro Council takes a moment to shine the spotlight on citizens in our districts who work for change and help others,” says Councilwoman Barbara Shanklin (D-2) who chairs the Committee.  “Through their efforts, our community is a better place to live.  This is one way of thanking them for what they do.”

          Two special groups will be honored during the program along with 23 individuals.  Below is a list of the honorees of for the 14th Annual Black History Program:

2019 Group Award: 

Kappa Alpha Psi

          The Louisville Chapter of this National Organization is being honored for its man community service projects in both Kentucky and Indiana. Most notably, the members deliver of food baskets to the needed during the Thanksgiving and Christmas Holidays.

2019 Honorees

  District     1                Eleanor Jordon

  District     2                Gloria Moorman

  District     3                Sgt. Tim Campbell

  District     4                Nachand Trabue

  District     5                Keith Morgan

  District     6                Norman D. Parker

  District     7                Natalie Thomas

  District     8                Tim Northern

  District     9                Janet Golden-Lewis

  District     10              Anthony Perry 

  District     11              Marland Cole

  District     12              Stevon Morris

  District     13              Yvette Gentry

  District     14              Marcus Howard

  District     15              Shelia Pitts

  District     16              Judge Erica Lee Williams 

  District     17              Rosalyn Griggs

  District     18              Madison Erin Roy

  District     19              Dr. Brigitte Owens

  District     20              Clarence Williams

  District     21              Tonya Cowden

  District     22               Jewel Daily

  District     23               Monica Sheckles

  District     24               Keanu Wilson

  District     25               Babie Bac’z Good Grill

  District     26               Karl Price

Councilwoman Keisha Dorsey (D-3) will host a series of “Office Hours” during the month of March before Shively City Council meetings to talk with residents about the budget situation facing Louisville Metro.

“I believe it is important to hear all ideas and concerns from everyone in the district,” says Dorsey. “It is my hope that people will take advantage of this opportunity to let me know how they feel, and I have asked city leaders in Shively to be on hand for questions too.”

The Councilwoman will be available for “Office Hours” from 6:00pm to 6:45pm at Shively City Hall, 3920 Dixie Hwy. She and Shively Mayor Beverly Chester Burton will be able to discuss the ordinances proposed for both Shively and Louisville Metro.

“Office Hours” will begin the first Monday on March 4th and end March 18th.

“Because of the seriousness of the pension situation and its impact on the Metro Government budget, several Council members are holding community meetings to hear from you. I am hear to listen,” says Ms. Dorsey.

For more information on District 3’s “Office Hours” in March, please contact Councilwoman Dorsey’s office at 574-1103.

Councilman Brent Ackerson (D-26) is inviting constituents to join him for a Budget Discussion on Saturday, February 23 from 3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Councilman Ackerson will offer his ideas on the current proposal and would like to hear from the residents of the 26th District.

“I encourage anyone who has heard about this situation to come out and express their ideas and concerns over what has been discussed in recent weeks,” said Ackerson.

The Budget Discussion will be held at St. John Paul II Church (the former St. Barnabas) in the school cafeteria, 3042 Hikes Lane.

Louisville Metro Chief Financial Officer Daniel Frockt will also be on hand to answer questions regarding Louisville Metro’s budget.

For more information about Saturday’s meeting, contact Councilman Ackerson’s office at 574-1126.

Two members of the Metro Council will cohost a public meeting this coming Saturday, February 23rd to give residents the chance to learn more about the current situation involving pensions and the upcoming budget for Metro Louisville.

          Council members Nicole George (D-21) and Kevin Triplett (D-15) will be at the Iroquois Branch of the Louisville Free Public Library to talk about the issue beginning at 10:30am.

          “This is just one of several meetings Council members are organizing around the city to talk about what we are facing in the coming year,” says George. “We will have people on hand to explain the problem and what has been proposed to solve this issue.”

          “It is important that we hear from everyone who has a concern,” says Triplett. “I hope those who have suggestions would also come forth with those ideas.”

          Both George and Triplett will be on hand for the “Meet your Legislators” program sponsored by Café Louie at the Iroquois Library beginning at 9:00am. They will stay around for the public meeting which will begin as soon as “Meet your Legislators” is over.

          For more information about the public meeting on the budget, contact Councilwoman George’s office at 574-1121 or Councilman Triplett’s office at 574-1115.

Louisville’s Office of Housing & Community Development (OHCD) and the Louisville Affordable Housing Trust Fund (LAHTF) have published a draft Housing Needs Assessment (HNA) that provides the city’s first in-depth analysis of housing stock across Louisville Metro. The assessment was done by Mullin & Lonergan Associates of Pittsburgh at a cost of about $100,000.

The HNA, which will be updated every five years, was conducted to provide current, detailed housing data that helps inform potential strategies that Louisville Metro Government (LMG), the trust fund, for-profit developers and non-profit developers can use to identify potential policies and development and investment strategies to increase housing opportunities for all members of our community.

The HNA breaks the city’s housing market down to the neighborhood level, using the same 21 market areas as the recently updated Comprehensive Plan. This level of detail will assist LMG, LAHTF and developers in making choices about where to invest housing funding or construct new housing.

Because the city’s housing market is tied together through choice and opportunity regardless of price, square footage or location, the HNA analyzes housing options and needs across all income ranges in Louisville Metro.

And it makes two distinct points: Our city has a surplus of over 4,000 rental units for households who make up to 150% of the Area Median Income (AMI), and a deficit of over 31,000 units for households who make up to 30% of the AMI. AMI is defined by the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development. Louisville’s current AMI is for a household of two is $57,200 and for a household of four is $71,500.

The HNA recommends focusing on the most critical need for Louisville — creating more housing for residents earning less than 30% of the AMI. The HNA found a need for 31,412 more units for this income level and suggests that by first addressing the gap for these households, the city will see a cascading impact on gaps in the income ranges just above that.

That’s because currently, households with the lowest income cannot find housing they can afford, so they’re forced into housing above their income. With that, they’re taking housing that those with slightly higher income could afford, creating another gap for that group of residents.

The HNA suggests that focusing on creating new housing for the most vulnerable residents frees up housing up the line and will have the greatest impact on the growing crisis at all income ranges.

The cost to develop 31,412 new units of housing affordable for Louisville’s lowest income households is estimated to be over $3.5 billion. The cost of not addressing the need is not measured in dollars, but in impacts to the livelihoods of our citizens.

Louisville has already begun work to invest by allocating over $41 million to affordable housing in the last four budgets. But to make significant progress on the city’s housing deficits, the report finds, there must be additional funding and policy initiatives at the local and state level, including a dedicated funding source to sustain affordable housing or a community land trust to create homeownership and wealth creation opportunities.

With its state partners, the city also could advocate for an expansion of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program.

OHCD and LAHTF will be discussing the HNA at two public meetings:

• Tuesday, February 26, 6:00 p.m. at Memorial Auditorium (970 S. 4th Street)
• Wednesday, February 27 at 9:30 a.m. at the Bon Air Library (2816 Del Rio Place)

To read the HNA in its entirety, please visit https://louisvilleky.gov/government/housing-community-development/housing-needs-assessment. An executive summary is available today and the entire document will be available on Thursday.

The document will be available for public comment until March 20. To submit on a comment on the Housing Needs Assessment, please visit https://louisvilleky.wufoo.com/forms/k125zoez1c0lru1/. Comments will be used to aid in formulating strategies for addressing housing market needs.

As part of an ongoing commitment to supporting community health and wellness, the Aetna Foundation today announced the winners of the Healthiest Cities & Counties Challenge (the Challenge).

Louisville Metro’s West Louisville Outdoor Recreation Initiative (WLORI_was selected as a runner-up to grant-prize winner, Charlotte, North Carolina (Mecklenburg, County) in the mid-sized city or county category (population 250,001 – 600,000 The WLORI is a multi-sector, grant-funded initiative, based at Jefferson Memorial Forest to create equitable access in west Louisville through expansion of Louisville ECHO (Louisville is Engaging Children Outdoors) programming and implementation of proposed outdoor recreation infrastructure improvements. 

The Challenge was launched in partnership with the American Public Health Association (APHA) and the National Association of Counties (NACo), empowering 50 small-to-mid-sized cities and counties nationwide to make measurable, scalable improvements to public health issues in their local communities. Since its inception, the Challenge awarded a total of $1.5 million in grants and prizes to the 50 participating programs to support their efforts to tackle the most pressing health issues facing their communities.

As a runner-up, Louisville Metro Parks and Recreation, WLORI initiative-owner, received a $50,000 prize which will increase capacity for Louisville ECHO programming in 2019.

The awarding of the Challenge prizes, funded by the Aetna Foundation, is part of a $100 million commitment by CVS Health and its affiliates to making community health and wellness central to the company’s charge for a better world. The new Building Healthier Communities initiative, which will be funded over five years by CVS Health and the CVS Health and Aetna Foundations, builds upon the outstanding tradition of community investment by CVS Health and Aetna and helps to advance CVS Health’s purpose of helping people on their path to better health. 

“In order to solve our most pressing public health issues, we have to start at the local level – acknowledging that the solutions to our problems are as diverse as the communities facing them,” said Karen S. Lynch, Executive Vice President, CVS Health and President, Aetna. “These communities are able to get to the heart of their unique challenges and create impactful programs that we hope can be replicated in other communities nationwide.”

Over the course of the Challenge, Louisville’s efforts improved local health outcomes with strong, scalable results:

• Expanded youth participation across all out-of-school time (OST) activities, including the ECHO Mobile, to serve an additional 840 children ages 3 to 14;
   
• Increased the average hours spent in nature by summer OST participants to 9.7 hours ;
   
• Engaged an additional 140 youth and families (47% increase) through the annual Canoemobile that introduced families to canoeing on the Ohio River.
   
• Launched new ECHO job-training component in 2017 to provide young adults from priority neighborhoods with summer employment and training in environmental education, recreation, and stewardship programs.

The West Louisville Outdoor Recreation Initiative and associated Louisville ECHO programming is a great example of how Metro Agencies, such as Parks and the Center for Health Equity, are working together with community partners to address social determinants of health, said Louisville Metro Chief of Community Building, Vincent James. 

“It is important that we recognize and understand that health equity is everybody’s work.  The fates of all in our community are intertwined, and the power of united action is making a difference in the lives of every citizen. The ECHO program affords us the opportunity to leverage our greatest asset “people” to engage in transformative action that allows us the ability to produce better health outcomes,” James said.

The first cohort of Challenge participants were chosen out of hundreds of city governments, local municipalities, health departments, educational institutions and other entities that applied to enter the competition. Improvements were measured around at least one of five domains: healthy behaviors, community safety, built environment, social/economic factors and environmental exposures. The Challenge winners and runners up were selected with assistance from an Advisory Council of public health leaders including elected officials, professors and physicians. RAND Corporation was tapped to evaluate the improvements in social determinants of health achieved and identify the most promising practices with potential for replication.

“Our winners and runners up have demonstrated the ability of counties to transform the communities they support,” said NACo president Greg Cox. “Organizations and leaders at the county level are in a unique position to champion the needs of local residents and join community partners in the effort to improve health outcomes for all residents to make a positive health impact.”