San Jose’s Piece of the Pie, Let’s Get Homes Occupied Again!
More than $5.6M has been allocated to San Jose to help residents purchase and fix up foreclosed homes, out of the $539M reserved for the State of California by HUD.
According to Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein, this amount is not nearly enough and is an insult to the state. They have pointed out that California is receiving less assistance than Florida even though we have nearly twice the number of foreclosures! However, the residents of San Jose seem happy to have some of this HUD pie to work with. A plan is being created to help buyers to purchase vacant homes, and return them to their former glory.
The program being considered would provide help for the downpayment, and some remodeling work. Income limits have been established - according to the Mercury News, the income limit for a one person household is $88,600 and $126,600 for a family of four.
On Monday, HUD will be publishing rules for how to spend the grant money, and communities will not be given their allocation until HUD approves plans in place. Although San Jose’s plan won’t help current homeowners facing foreclosure, it should help solve the problem of vacant, untended properties dragging down neighborhood property prices – and morale.
David said:
If they want to fix up foreclosed homes, instead of putting it into a political slush fund (HUD), Congress could give people tax breaks for buying & fixing up foreclosed houses.
Additionally, they could allow Frannie (since we own them now) to count the tax break against the purchase price to make it easier to finance.
But they don’t want to do that, because they’d rather have the money go to their political allies & dependents at HUD.
/rant off/
September 27, 2008 9:37 AM
brenda.keener said:
Yeah – but we are not going to live in an apolitical world ever. Better to iterate towards goodness and count our blessings than hope for perfection. Just my two cents.
September 27, 2008 11:06 PM
Lauren Lynn said:
awesome piece
October 10, 2008 2:42 AM