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Kaine announces housing money for area Date published: 4/7/2009
BY BILL FREEHLING Four Fredericksburg-area localities will receive grants totaling $5 million to buy, fix up and resell foreclosed homes, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine announced yesterday. Fredericksburg and Caroline, Spotsylvania and Stafford counties--all areas that have been hit relatively hard by home foreclosures--will receive the grants through Virginia's Neighborhood Stabilization Program. The program is designed to ease the effect that foreclosures have had on neighborhoods, and to allow localities to sell the refur- bished homes to families with low-to-middle incomes. Neighborhoods with heavy concentrations of foreclosures are being targeted. The grants are being offered locally in partnership with the Central Virginia Housing Coalition. Spotsylvania and Caroline combined will receive $2.5 million, as will Stafford and Fredericksburg. Loudoun County is also getting $2 million, Kaine's office announced yesterday. Foreclosures have hit Northern Virginia harder than any other part of the state, in part due to the large number of houses built and skyrocketing prices during the boom years. The problem pales here in comparison to many areas of Florida, California, Arizona and others, but it's still been enough to drive down housing prices and flood the local market with foreclosed homes. "While our economy continues to fare better than other states, Virginia has not escaped the national foreclosure crisis unscathed," Kaine said in a prepared statement. He said the top priority with the grants is to to help "hardworking families avoid foreclosure in the first place," but added that, "Virginia must also ensure abandoned homes don't hurt local economies further by bringing down the value of nearby properties." Virginia has received $38.7 million through the stabilization program, which is authorized under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 and administered through the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development. The grants announced yesterday are the first to be awarded through this program. Bill Freehling: 540/374-5424
It's a start--
http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2008/112008/11092008/422493
Ha, that won't do hardly anything...thanks.
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