Higgins Announces Foreclosure Prevention Counseling Grant for CHRIC

Jamestown, NY - October 12, 2009 - (RealEstateRama) — With the backdrop of a foreclosed house acquired by CHRIC in Jamestown’s PRIDE neighborhood, Congressman Brian Higgins announced today that Chautauqua Home Rehabilitation and Improvement Corporation is receiving $26,640 to support the agency’s foreclosure prevention counseling efforts.  The grant will enable CHRIC to continue providing foreclosure counseling countywide for homeowners in danger of foreclosure.  

John Murphy, CHRIC executive director said, “CHRIC appreciates the financial assistance being provided by the Congress to help our agency to continue to work with area homeowners in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure. We are seeing a lot of homeowners with losses of income or reductions in hours worked because of the poor economy, or those with mortgages based on adjustable rates or other predatory conditions who are at-risk of losing their homes.  This award will allow us to continue to have our dedicated foreclosure counselor on staff to help assist affected families.”

Congressman Higgins used the occasion to meet and speak with Jamestown Youthbuild students recently enrolled in the federal program for at-risk youth.  Students cleared brush away from the 8th Street house, one of several vacant houses recently acquired by CHRIC for rehab and re-sale to owner-occupants.  Over the course of two years Youthbuild students will completely rehabilitate two vacant houses in Jamestown as part of the project.  CHRIC is combining funding from the Neighborhood Stabilization Program and Youthbuild to carry out the two-year strategy.  Congressman Higgins said, “I want to acknowledge CHRIC for their unique combination of these federal funds to improve Jamestown neighborhoods.  The investment in vacant houses, unemployed youth, housing counseling, and neighborhood revitalization constitutes a win-win strategy for Jamestown”

In June CHRIC received a federal grant totaling $644,051 for Jamestown Youthbuild which will provide job training and educational opportunities for at-risk youth ages 18 to 24 while rehabilitating vacant houses in their own neighborhoods. Selected young people will split their time between the construction site and the classroom, where they will earn their GED or high school diploma, learn to be community leaders, and prepare for college and other post-secondary training opportunities. In addition, students interested in following a construction career can be placed in paid work experience for three weeks with contractors to help them transition to construction related employment.

Joining the Congressman was Jamestown Mayor Sam Teresi.  Mayor Teresi helped Congressman Higgins in posting a sign on the vacant house that states; This house is Not Vacant. It is the HOME of your NEW NEIGHBOR.  Mayor Teresi said, “You will be seeing several of these signs going up in the city on houses being acquired by CHRIC for rehab and re-sale over the next 18-months.  This positive message means that good things are happening in the city, and that we are welcoming young families and other renters to come and live in our fair city and raise your families here. The houses assisted with the neighborhood Stabilization Program funding is available to households with higher incomes, so I urge anyone interested in purchasing one of these improved houses to contact CHRIC. ”

“This is a great example of how by working together, Congressman Higgins, Mayor Teresi, the County, Mr. Murphy, and most importantly the people of Northside PRIDE, we can reverse blight, revitalize neighborhoods, turn around the county’s economic decline, and make Chautauqua County prosper,” said County Legislator Chuck Cornell.  “I have worked very hard to make revitalizing the housing stock a county wide concern, and as a result, county government is less of an obstacle, and instead part of the solution.”

The grant to support CHRIC foreclosure intervention efforts was provided by funds from the National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling Program.  The initial funding was provided by Congress in the 2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act, and additional funding was provided through the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, which also included the Neighborhood Stabilization Program funds awarded to CHRIC to rehab 10 housing units.  The National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling Program is administered through a competitive application process by NeighborWorks® America, an independent, Congressionally-chartered non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., with a mission to provide access to sustainable homeownership and safe, affordable rental housing.  CHRIC is an affiliate of NeighborWorks® America.

For more information about CHRIC’s foreclosure prevention efforts, please contact Brenda Bunce at 753-4118.

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