Mayor: Many Vacant Homes To Be Revamped for Low-Income Families

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The New York Sun

Several hundred vacant homes in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx that have been seen as a blight on their neighborhoods are going to be renovated and sold to low-income families, Mayor Bloomberg announced yesterday.


In a complicated deal between the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the federal government, several nonprofit groups, and a developer, 360 shoddy, empty homes will be gutted, rebuilt, and sold through a lottery as “affordable housing.”


The deal, part of the city’s goal of rehabilitating 1,800 apartments in the five boroughs, also calls for a third of the houses to be put aside for veterans who meet income requirements and have served since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, a benefit veterans have never enjoyed in the city.


The stock includes one, two, and three-family homes that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has foreclosed on over a number of years.


Under the program, HUD agreed to sell the houses at discounted rates to a city-sponsored developer called Restored Homes. The developer will make renovations and sell the houses at affordable prices to 650 families.


Mr. Bloomberg said that, in the past, many of the properties would have been sold to “unscrupulous investors” who would make only cosmetic repairs and then resell the homes at a profit.


He said the program, which is limited to families making no more than $72,000, will help break that cycle and aid hundreds of black and Hispanic families in purchasing their first homes.


The secretary of HUD, Alphonso Jackson, said he and President Bush were committed to providing “more decent, safe, and affordable homes.”


“President Bush and I both believe in the power of homeownership, and when people own their home, they own a stake in the community,” Mr. Jackson said.


HUD will sell 60 homes to Restores for $1 apiece and the remaining 300 at 50% of their appraised value. The city and several private partners will contribute $145 million for a loan pool to fund construction and purchasing costs.


The New York Sun

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