Last week, it was announced that Maine would be receiving a 19.6 million dollar portion of a $4 billion dollar federal foreclosure bailout/neighborhood stabilization package.
According to a release in Mainebiz ( http://www.mainebiz.biz/news44028.html ), most of the money would be going to Lewiston-Auburn, Sanford, and Portland.
This package allows local governments to directly buy up distressed homes, rehabilitate them, and, as the article alludes, sell them to families that may not otherwise be able to afford homes, through responsible, low-cost loans and homeownership counseling.
However, looking more closeley at the actual plan, it looks like a majority of the homes that are purchased by the state will not be rehabilitated for the purpose of selling, but rather for rental purposes, with an emphasis on housing the severely low-income population.
Specifically, $5,000,000 of the funding for would go toward housing individuals or families whose incomes do not exceed 50% of area median income (that would be less than $25,000 or $30,000, depending on the area in Maine), and would be essentialy to create and administer rental housing. The following was copied and pasted from the plan, viewable at the link below:(http://www.meocd.org/forms/Maine%20NSP%20Substantial%20Amendment%20Final.pdf)
The state will "Issue an RFP for the Regional Homeless Council housing development program. This program will provide grant money for the acquisition and rehabilitation of foreclosed upon properties to develop permanent housing for people that are homeless... In addition to the $5,000,000 set aside for the MaineHousing activities above there is a strong possibility that additional housing units purchased and rehabilitated with NSP funds will be occupied by individuals or families whose incomes do not exceed 50% of area median income."
Should foreclosed properties be bought by the state, rehabbed and used to house the homeless? Will this help or hurt our communities and property values? Would we be better off letting the private sector buy and redevelop these properties?
I am torn here. I belive on a moral/humane level that helping the homeless is a good idea, but I'm not sold on the idea that this is the kind of economic stimulus we need - the kind that will increase home sales, stabilize housing values, and help pull up the housing industry and with it the rest of the economy. I would LOVE some input from other Realtors (good or bad) as to how this money is being used in their states!
Comments(23)