Md. suburbs lead pack in doling out foreclosure funding

Prince George’s County received nearly $11 million and Montgomery County about $2 million in grants through the first round of the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program. Prince George’s had obligated nearly 80 percent of its money and Montgomery County had allocated all of it.

Montgomery managed to assign all of its funding plus an additional $2.5 million from the state, said Rick Nelson, director of the county’s Department of Housing and Community Affairs. As a result, Montgomery received an additional $300,000 from the state, he said.

“We have decided to use the funds in areas that had been hard hit by foreclosures,” including the Germantown and Glenmont areas, he said. “The program’s been helpful to us.”

The District received about $2.8 million, which has been allotted to the redevelopment of the Ivy City neighborhood in Northeast. The project is “well within the time frame,” said Angelita Colon-Francia, a spokeswoman for D.C.’s Department of Housing and Community Development.

Congress has required that all state and local jurisdictions earmark the round of funding by September.

In Northern Virginia, Prince William and Fairfax counties have each assigned about a quarter of their funds.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development allocated $3.92 billion to the 55 states and territories, as well as selected local governments,in the first round of funding. Just under 40 percent of the total has been obligated.

HUD also granted $1.93 billion to states, local governments and nonprofit organizations in a second round of competitivefunding. Organizations in the District have been awarded about $22.5 million through this round.

HUD recently expanded some of its home qualifications for the program, which the department says will allow more properties to qualify and will remove barriers to the program caused by market conditions.

“In the beginning, we had a problem in that we had investors beating us to the door,” Nelson said.

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