CLEARFIELD – The Clearfield County Commissioners approved awarding monies from its 2012 Affordable Housing Trust Fund to three area housing projects after they were endorsed by County Planning & Community Development Director Jodi Brennan at Tuesday’s regular meeting.
The county recently solicited projects to be awarded monies from its affordable housing fund. These projects must increase the availability of “quality, affordable housing” either through sales or rental to any county resident whose annual income is less than the median income of the county, Brennan said.
According to her, eligible projects included owner occupied rehabilitation, rental rehabilitation, first-time home buyers programs, housing counseling programs, emergency repair programs, elderly, special needs and disabled housing, veterans housing, new home construction, land banks, transitional housing, homeless shelters, community stabilization programs, foreclosure prevention, emergency rental assistance and bridge loans for rental housing development.
She said that the county received four applications, and they were reviewed by the county’s planning and community development office. She recommended three projects for funding, and they included:
- a Cen-Clear Child Services’ Specialized Housing Counseling Initiative in which a counselor determines housing needs for low income families and individuals. She said it would be providing counseling and training and linking them to the housing services they need.
Brennan said that the program would serve 60 families over a 12-month timeframe.
- a CHORE Service at Central Pennsylvania Community Action (CPCA), which improves housing stock by assisting low income families/individuals with necessary health and safety repairs that are needed to keep them in their homes.
- a DuBois City Redevelopment Authority Blighted Properties program, which would help them acquire blighted properties and rehabilitate them for the purpose of getting them back into the hands of responsible homeowners as well as on its tax rolls.
Brennan said Cen-Clear sought $15,000, and both CPCA and the DuBois City Redevelopment Authority asked for $10,000 each. The commissioners approved all three awards in the previously said amounts.