Sep
8
Tennessee will get about $10.2 million in Neighborhood Stabilization Program grants as part of $1 billion U.S. Housing and Urban Development earmarked for states struggling to reverse the effects of the foreclosure crisis.
State and local governments can use the neighborhood stabilization grants to buy land and property; to demolish or rehabilitate abandoned properties; and/or to offer downpayment and closing cost assistance to low- to moderate-income homebuyers (household incomes not exceeding 120 percent of area median income).
Memphis will get more than half of the state funding, with about $5.2 million set aside for the Bluff City. The rest of the state will get $5 million.
“These grants will support local efforts to reverse the effects these foreclosed properties have on their surrounding neighborhoods,” said HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, in a press release. “We want to make certain that we target these funds to those places with especially high foreclosure activity so we can help turn the tide in our battle against abandonment and blight.”
Memphis has struggled with high foreclosure rates since the housing crisis began, although the numbers seem to be trending down. The Memphis metro area had 1,388 foreclosure filings in July, or one in every 399 households, according to RealtyTrac Inc. data. Foreclosures in the MSA increased 6.3 percent from June but fell 31.6 percent from the previous July.
The latest $1 billion in Neighborhood Stabilization Program funding is provided under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and follows some $6 billion in similar funding in recent years. The two other rounds of Neighborhood Stabilization Program funding came with the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 ($3.92 billion) and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 ($2 billion).
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