In the Charlottesville community, housing agencies are working together to implement new homeownership programs in line with President George W. Bush's housing goals -- an additional 5.5 million minority homeowners by the end of the decade.
The Piedmont Housing Alliance, the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority, and the Division of Strategic Planning are implementing a Section 8 Homeownership Pilot Program and renovating homes intended to serve as Section 8 housing.
Under Section 8, low-income families and individuals can receive federal housing subsidies.
The new federal program allows residents to apply section 8 housing vouchers toward mortgage payments instead of rent payments.
Currently, most vouchers are used for monthly rent payments, said Satyendra Huja, director of strategic planning for Charlottesville.
The local pilot program followed an October 2000 Housing and Urban Development regulation that broadened the use of Section 8 vouchers beyond rent subsidization.
The program's precedent, the Mainstream Program, continues to provide Section 8 vouchers for rental housing through a similar partnership between CRHA and the PHA.
Local housing authorities also are renovating existing housing to increase the availability of low-income housing.
"Most efforts are focused on ownership," Huja said. "We are right now working on about 30 houses in the Tenth and Page neighborhood" as part of the Tenth and Page Housing Neighborhood Initiative.
CRHA and PHA work in conjunction with the city division of strategic planning in this initiative either to rehabilitate or do construction, PHA Deputy Director Karen Click said. "The plan is to renovate or rebuild anywhere from 28 to 32 units -- the majority will be for homeownership."
Such building initiatives reflect efforts in line with the Bush Administration's goal of boosting low and moderate-income family home ownership.
The local Pilot Program provides a viable way to "focus efforts on ownership," Huja said.
"We are also helping with down payment assistance, providing up to $3,000 on a matching basis," from mostly federal funds, Huja added.
Federal funds also provide grants to the PHA for housing education.
"We have a comprehensive housing counseling program," Click said. Twenty families who participated in PHA buyer education counseling last year went on to become first-time homeowners.
"The majority of our housing counseling clients are African-American," Click said. "We feel that our initiative is supporting the Bush efforts to increase minority homeownership."
HUD issued a statement Wednesday in support of Bush's goal of increasing minority homeownership. The statement came a day after the release of a new HUD report, "The Economic Benefits of Minority Homeownership." Based on the latest Census data and other economic statistics, the report identifies homeownership as a foundation for financial security.
Bush echoed this conclusion at a George Washington University conference on Minority Ownership on Tuesday.
"Homeownership is an important part of our economic vitality," Bush said. "And that's important because it will help people find work."
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