The U.S. Treasury Department has approved North Carolina's plan to use $159 million in federal funds to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.
The state will begin dispersing the money in December. The money is going to the N.C. Housing Finance Agency, whose mission is to provide affordable housing options to residents.
“We expect that over the next three years this effort will enable 7,200 North Carolina workers to keep their homes,” said A. Robert Kucab, executive director of the housing finance agency, in a statement. “It will also help stabilize property values in their neighborhoods by reducing the number of foreclosure sales."
North Carolina is one of five states that is receiving portions of a $600 million federal aid package designed to prevent foreclosures. The other states are Ohio, South Carolina, Oregon and Rhode Island.
The sizes of the allocations were based on the number of people living in counties where the unemployment rate is above 12 percent.
When the program was announced earlier this year, North Carolina's overall unemployment rate was 11.2 percent in February, and more than half the state's 100 counties register rates above 12 percent.
Only Ohio received a larger allocation than North Carolina.
The N.C. Housing Finance Agency will continue running several state-funded foreclosure prevention projects. One provides loan payments to people while they look for a job or are retrained.
Another program, which received $6.5 million in federal grant money, counsels homeowners who are in danger of losing their houses.
Business reporter David Bracken came to the N&O in 2004. He covers commercial and residential real estate. Contact David at 919-829-4548 or
Comments
Can ANYONE identify ANY
Wed, 08/04/2010 - 17:30 — gop127Can ANYONE identify ANY elected Republican who has done ANYTHING to help the American economy recover or to assist ANY American citizen 'weather' the economic recession? Certainly, Richard Burr has done NOTHING! Burr is an embarrassment to the citizens of North Carolina and his days are numbered.
More waste!
Wed, 08/04/2010 - 13:13 — TheLibertineThe people who might have legitimately benefitted from this program are already out in the street. The $159M would be better spent giving business owners tax breaks so they can hire more people. This will be yet another failed government program that taxpayers will have to cover. Wow. The future is looking quite bleak.
struggling homeowners
Wed, 08/04/2010 - 12:50 — Reagan4PresYou can throw all the money you want at the wall but it ain't gonna stick. You are wasting your money. This will not help anyone keep their homes. To utilize this program, folks are going to required to come to the office and fill out forms. They are too lazy to do that. That's the whole reason they are losing their homes to begin with. I will bet you that the state uses the majority of the money paying for the administration of the program.