By O. Kay Henderson (Radio Iowa)

The executive director of the Iowa chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness says while the 988 National Suicide Prevention Lifeline has melted down in some other states, that hasn’t been the case here. NAMI Iowa’s Peggy Huppert says that’s because the two crisis response services in eastern Iowa that have been handling 988 since it launched in July had been fielding suicide prevention calls and texts for some time.

“They were used to working together,” Huppert says. “And were used to working together with local law enforcement and other providers across the state.”

Foundation 2 Crisis Services in Cedar Rapids is handling Iowa phone calls to 988. CommUnity Crisis Services in Iowa City is handling text messages to 988 and has been contracted to handle texts from other states that aren’t being answered quickly. Goals set for 988 include responding to a text or answering a phone call within 30 seconds. In July, the average pick-up time in Iowa was 18 second for phone calls.

“I’m really impressed with that,” Huppert says. “We do want to have people call for help and get immediate help.”

Being able to text the 988 National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is critical, according to Huppert. “If you’re under a certain age, that’s just how you communicate, so we absolutely have to have that capability,” Huppert says.

CommUnity recently reported a 788% increase in the text messages it answers from Iowans and other states. CommUnity is a national back-up center for texts to the 9-8-8 National Suicide Prevention Hotline. Foundation 2 Crisis Services in Cedar Rapids answered more than 1100 suicide hotline calls from Iowa in July. That’s 55% above the monthly average from January through June.

DES MOINES, IA — Nearly half of Iowa high school seniors in the class of 2022 applied for college financial aid via the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, halting a four-year trend of declining FAFSA completion rates in the state. However, despite the FAFSA completion rate stabilizing, the rate has not rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, and significant equity gaps remain between gender, race, and income levels.

The findings are detailed in Iowa College Aid’s “FAFSA Filing in Iowa: 2022” report, available here.

During the 2022-23 FAFSA cycle, 49 percent of Iowa high school seniors completed the FAFSA, equaling last year’s percentage, which was the first FAFSA cycle to occur entirely during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the percentage of Iowa high school seniors completing the FAFSA remained the same, it is a four percentage point decline from the 53 percent FAFSA completion rate achieved in the 2018-19 FAFSA cycle.

“Even though we have yet to return to our pre-pandemic FAFSA completion rate, we are encouraged that this year’s FAFSA completion rate has remained steady and hope this is an opportunity to drive those rates upward,” said Dr. Mark Wiederspan, Executive Director of Iowa College Aid. “Focusing on increasing our FAFSA completion rate is critical to help Iowa achieve its goal that 70 percent of the workforce have some form of postsecondary education and training. Our research also indicates students are more likely to attend and complete college if they complete the FAFSA.”

When separated by race and ethnicity, Asian, Hispanic, and Black students all experienced modest increases in FAFSA completion rates during the most recent FAFSA cycle. However, Hispanic and Black students still have the lowest FAFSA completion rates of any race/ethnicity, lagging the completion rate of White students by approximately 20 percentage points.

Significant gaps in FAFSA completion rates also remain between female and male public high school seniors, as male students complete the FAFSA at a rate that trails their female counterparts by 15 percentage points. This rate remains consistent with results from the previous four FAFSA cycles.

These numbers underscore the importance of efforts to increase Iowa’s rates for filing the FAFSA, which is required for all federal and state financial aid and most forms of aid from colleges and universities. This summer, in partnership with the Iowa College Access Network, Iowa College Aid hired 11 FAFSA associates to help students file their applications and follow through on plans to seek postsecondary education.

Iowa College Aid is also hosting a FAFSA Learning Day Oct. 11 as part of FAFSA Awareness Week Oct. 10-14. The week is a statewide initiative to educate and inform Iowans with step-by-step strategies and information on completing the FAFSA and securing aid to finance postsecondary education.

(DES MOINES) – The Iowa Finance Authority Board of Directors today awarded a total of nearly $10 million in federal housing tax credits to support the construction of a total of 385 affordable rental homes for Iowans. The awards were made to 11 rental housing projects located in Adel, Audubon, Bondurant, Boone, Carroll, Cedar Rapids, Davenport, Grinnell, Hiawatha, Ottumwa and Winterset

“Housing is foundational to the economic mobility of Iowans and the strength of our communities,” said Iowa Finance Authority Executive Director Debi Durham. “The tax credit awards announced today will provide hundreds of Iowa families and seniors with homes in which they can thrive in urban and rural communities all throughout the state.”

“The addition of the 35 rental homes to be constructed at the Villas at Fox Pointe Audubon will provide dozens of families with an affordable place to call home right here within our community,” said City of Audubon Mayor Barb Jacobsen. “This investment in Audubon will spur many economic ripple effects as more of our workforce will be able to live near where they work.”

The Internal Revenue Service makes an annual per capita allocation of federal tax credits to each state for the Federal Housing Tax Credit program. The Iowa Finance Authority is charged with allocating those credits to affordable housing developers. The developers who receive tax credits sell them to investors to generate equity for the housing developments.

The Iowa Finance Authority received 24 applications requesting more than $20 million in housing tax credits in the 2022 tax credit round. IFA had a total of approximately $10 million available to allocate.

The actual awards total nearly $100 million because the credits are committed annually for a 10-year period.

View Award Listing Here