Grant boosts Baring senior housing rebuilding plans

Published 1:28 pm Thursday, August 6, 2026

PALMYRA — When an August 2023 tornado damaged its housing units, Baring Community Senior Housing Inc. set a goal to recover and rebuild the 16-unit, four-building complex.

“We are very close to having three of the buildings done,” Board President Keli Luthenauer said. “The fourth building was going to have to sit and wait, but now we may be able to move forward on starting the fourth building.”

The nonprofit got some help on Thursday with a $54,000 grant thanks to HomeBank in partnership with the Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) of Des Moines.

“We felt that was definitely a worthwhile cause to try to get those units back in operating order where they can get rented out and provide some affordable housing to seniors in that community,” said Josh Wilson, community bank president for the Northeast Missouri market of HomeBank, a member bank of FHLB of Des Moines.

The partners awarded $322,000 in grants to 12 Missouri nonprofits, including four in Northeast Missouri, through a new matching program tied to FHLB’s Member Impact Fund. Grantees met guidelines to provide affordable housing, job training, financial literacy, food banks, and youth services to their communities.

“It’s a huge, huge benefit for our communities to be able to have a program like this,” Wilson said.

Without the grants, Wilson said some of the projects might not happen — or would take much longer to complete.

“Once we heard about the program, we were able to identify some projects or organizations that we thought would be a fit for it. We reached out to them, explained what was going on, and helped in the application process,” Wilson said.

Being included in the process was an amazing honor for the senior housing board in the small Knox County community, which saw its senior housing residents displaced by the tornado’s damage to Edina, Kirksville, and elsewhere.

“The majority of these residents were low-income elderly people, and their families are in our community, so it will bring them home,” Luthenauer said.

Board members hope to have residents moving back in around the first of the year.
“You have to wait on supplies. You had to do the cleanup. That’s a big part of it right there, the expense and everything of the cleanup,” she said.

The new grant may not cover the total cost of the fourth building, “but it will certainly help get us a long way,” Luthenauer said. “The people at HomeBank have helped us along the way immensely.”

FHLB is a member-owned cooperative that provides funding solutions and liquidity to more than 1,200 members to support mortgage lending, economic development, and affordable housing in the communities they serve.

“They’re a bank for banks,” Wilson said.

Since 2023, the Member Impact Fund has provided more than $82 million in grants from FHLB Des Moines, matching local investments three-to-one and generating more than $113 million in combined support with member banks.

Whether FHLB’s program continues or not, Wilson said HomeBank will continue to support local nonprofits.

“We’re going to continue to be strong supporters of the communities that we have branches in,” he said. “That’s not going to stop.”

HomeBank and FHLB Des Moines presented three additional grants in Northeast Missouri:

—$160,000 to Hannibal Regional Healthcare System toward purchase of a new linear accelerator and building upgrades to the Cary Cancer Center in Hannibal, as well as building a new state-of-the-art cancer center in Kirksville.

—$10,000 to Anne’s Anchor, a nonprofit maternity home in Bowling Green serving women experiencing homelessness, housing instability, or other life challenges. The funds will be used to establish a children’s resale store to provide affordable everyday necessities and create workforce development opportunities for mothers.

—$10,000 to the Bowling Green R-I Education Foundation to cover teacher grants, student academic and leadership programs, and enhanced educational experiences.