After years of trying to gain status as a metropolitan area, the city of Ames has run into a bureaucratic roadblock that could cost it thousands of dollars.

The U.S. Census Bureau reported Ames had 50,731 residents after the 2000 census.

That was just enough to push it over the 50,000 mark many businesses and government agencies use to determine a metropolitan area.

After achieving a goal 15 years in the making, city leaders learned that some government funding for metropolitan areas is on hold until at least 2003, said Bob Kindred, Ames assistant city manager.

“Metropolitan” is shorthand for different designations by federal agencies.

The most important ones for Ames, Kindred said, are the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development – commonly known as HUD – and the Department of Transportation.

HUD designates more than 50,000 communities as “entitlement communities,” Kindred said, which receive housing funding directly from the government.

No new entitlement communities will be designated until 2003, while the department staff evaluate the criterion, he said.

Communities with less than 50,000 people must submit a grant to the state to receive HUD money for housing and human services, Kindred said.

Ames does have a lack of affordable housing, he said, but several smaller communities, where many residents are in the low-to-moderate income bracket, show a much greater level of need for government funding.

Ames has not received a housing grant for “many years,” Kindred said.

“A lot more economic stress has been placed on people in small communities than in Ames,” he said.

Vanessa Baker-Latimer, housing coordinator for Ames, said the city will have more resources once HUD grants entitlement community status.

“There is a concern that more housing options need to be addressed on more levels,” she said.

Ames could be eligible for up to $700,000 a year in block-grant funding if it is designated as an entitlement community, Kindred said. City officials will have to wait until 2003 to find out.

“We’ve been stretching to reach 50,000 for at least 15 years, but . that criterion might change,” he said.

The wait is especially aggravating after the city’s “Claim Ames” program, a concentrated effort by city officials to convince ISU students to claim Ames as their official residence on the census.

Clare Bills, public relations officer for Ames, said the campaign used prizes and a federal law to get students to list Ames as their city of residence for more than six months of the year on the census.

“Ames had been very close to the 50,000 mark for at least 10 years,” Bills said. “We tried to help students understand that they could be prosecuted for not claiming Ames.”

Another city development hinges upon Ames designation as a metropolitan area. The Census Bureau traditionally designated cities with a population greater than 50,000 as “urbanized areas,” which receive funding for transportation directly from the federal government, Kindred said.

New definitions for urbanized areas, which the Census Bureau will decide in the next year, will determine whether or not transportation funds will come directly from the federal government.

Ames currently receives transportation funding through the Central Iowa Regional Transportation Planning Alliance, Kindred said.

The city’s new status as a metropolis may mean losing money for rural development grants.

Mark Reinig, economic development coordinator, said U.S. Department of Agriculture grants have a 50,000 person threshold.

“There has not been a direct loss yet,” he said.