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HUD to give South Carolina nearly $45M |
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Wednesday, 01 October 2008 |
SCBIZ Daily Staff
COLUMBIA -- With a statewide foreclosure rate of 4.1%, South Carolina is slated to receive $44.67 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s new Neighborhood Stabilization Program.
HUD Secretary Steven Preston allocated $3.92 billion to all states and particularly hard-hit areas through the program in an effort to respond to the effects of high foreclosures. The new stabilization program is funded through the Community Development Block Grant Program under Title III of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008.
As South Carolina is set to receive almost $45 million of the allocated funds, the S.C. Association of Community Development Corporations’ members and stakeholders will be active players in the program.
According to the association’s Web site, it is a statewide trade group of nonprofit, community-based development corporations within the state’s economically distressed communities. It places an emphasis on promoting development in communities that have been left out of the economic mainstream.
Through the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, state and local government grantees can develop programs and funding priorities, appropriating at least 25% of the funds for the purchase and redevelopment of abandoned or foreclosed residential properties.
The properties must be used to house individuals or families whose incomes do not exceed 50% of the area median income. Furthermore, all grantee programs funded by the program must benefit low- and moderate-income people whose income does not exceed 120% of area median income.
Eligible uses include but are not limited to:
• Offering finance mechanisms for purchase and redevelopment of foreclosed homes and residential properties.
• Purchasing and rehabilitating homes and residential properties abandoned or foreclosed.
• Establishing land banks for foreclosed homes.
• Demolishing blighted structures.
• Redeveloping demolished or vacant properties.
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