HAAF Funding Needs Your Support!

Historic Preservation Projects in Wyoming need your help! A critical Wyoming SHPO program needs your support to ensure that it receives continued funding for the next biennium. In 2009, the Wyoming State Legislature established the Historic Architecture Assistance Fund (HAAF) as a partnership between the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office and the Wyoming Main Street Program. The fund was established as a onetime grant program and will end July 1, 2010 unless additional funding is appropriated. Refunding the HAAF program is currently under consideration, as the Governor and the Joint Appropriations Committee prepare the budget for the next biennium.

In the short time the grant program has been available, 48 technical assistance grants totaling $187,500 have been awarded to the owners of historic buildings in 24 Wyoming communities (see attached table). HAAF funds have gone to support a range of projects as diverse as churches, historic schoolhouses, ranch properties, grain silos, historic hotel buildings, and a wide variety of downtown commercial buildings. These grants provide the critical first step in a project, by providing a building owner with the services of an experienced preservation architect to analyze a building and make recommendations for its preservation. The positive response to this program has nearly exhausted the funds allocated for it.

The 48 projects funded through this program is impressive, and points out the pent up demand for preservation architectural assistance in Wyoming. We urge you to write to Governor Freudenthal and the members of the Joint Appropriations Committee in support of continued funding for HAAF. If a project in your community has been funded, be sure to thank the legislators for their help. If not, let them know of projects in your community that could benefit from this fund in the future. You should also consider copying your letter to the Governor and the JAC to your own state representative and state senator.

Please send a copy of any correspondence to:

Milward Simpson, Director
State Parks and Cultural Resources
2301 Central Ave.
Cheyenne, Wy. 82002