My friend Nancy Amons, investigative reporter at WSMV-TV in Nashville, Tenn., recently dropped me a note to tell me about a story idea that "Al's Morning Meeting" readers in every state can localize.
Amons just produced a story that looks into the new federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP), which is supposed to help buy up blighted homes.
The government plans to spend nearly $4 billion targeting the areas of the country that have the most foreclosures. The plan is to fix up the houses and sell them to low-income families. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has allocated money to hundreds of local governments as part of the program.
Amons wrote:
"In July 2008, Congress signed into law the '
Emergency Assistance for the Redevelopment of Abandoned and Foreclosed Homes.' The federal government appropriated $4 billion to send to state and local governments to buy foreclosed and abandoned homes. The homes are to be rehabbed and sold or demolished.
"Every agency that accepted this money has to file quarterly reports on how it has used the money so far. Nashville's most recent report showed [the state] had acquired and rehabbed exactly zero houses to date, but that it plans to start negotiating with banks in the next 30 days. In all fairness, the money took a while to trickle down, and there are a lot of requirements that have to be met."
HUD offers
state-by-state NSP allocations information about how much money is coming your way, as well as
other helpful information about communities and homes.
