Montgomery County will spend up to $3.5 million to buy 10 foreclosed homes, give them to Habitat for Humanity for rehabilitation and ultimately sell them to low-income local families, county officials said Thursday.
Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett is expected to announce the partnership Friday morning at Habitat for Humanity’s First Annual Affordable Housing Benefit Breakfast in Bethesda.
This is the first time a local government has partnered with Habitat for Humanity to revamp foreclosed properties, officials said. County leaders hope the homes will be fully renovated by the middle of 2009. Habitat for Humanity will rigorously screen low-income, local families before awarding 10 individuals the 30-year, zero-interest home mortgages that are typical of their projects.
Rick Nelson, Montgomery’s director of housing and community affairs, said the foreclosed properties purchased will likely be in the Glenmont, Aspen Hill and Wheaton areas, which have been particularly hard hit by the foreclosure crisis.
“The intent in focusing on a single neighborhood is to do what we can to stabilize a community and prevent the negative impact of what a lot of foreclosed properties could do to an area,” Nelson said.
According to Nelson, the county has set aside up to $350,000 for the purchase of each property, but officials will focus more on the location of the foreclosed home than its cost.
Residents of neighborhoods with many foreclosed properties often complain of the untrimmed lawns, rodents and squatters common to neighborhoods where many homes are vacant.
Montgomery County officials say they have only had a handful of incidents in which vagrants have been found living in foreclosed properties.
County data shows 930 Montgomery homes were in some stage of the foreclosure process between July and October 2008, down 387 properties, or almost 30 percent, from foreclosures in the previous three months.
