By: Deborah Johnson Wood
The Dyer-Ives Foundation released a new study this week, The Foreclosure Crisis in Kent County; A Call for a Comprehensive Response. The study is the basis for a new program, Foreclosure Response, funded by Dyer-Ives and the Grand Rapids Community Foundation.
The report outlines four strategies—prevention, intervention, stabilization, and revitalization. Foreclosure Response aims to develop these strategies through a committee of representatives from several organizations, including the City of Grand Rapids, The Fair Housing Center and the Coalition to End Homelessness, among others.
“The Grand Rapids Community Foundation (GRCF) and Dyer-Ives have teamed up to support Foreclosure Response with $75,000 in grants for each of the next two years,” says Lee Nelson Weber, Dyer-Ives neighborhood initiative director. “We’ve hired a person to work exclusively with Foreclosure Response on the neighborhood level. That will help us leverage the federal money and do more than we could with just the federal money.”
That federal money is part of the Homeowner Emergency Relief Act approved in July to purchase, rehab and resell foreclosed HUD homes in the county. The City of Grand Rapids received $6.4 million; Kent County received $3.9 million.
“We’re looking to stabilize these neighborhoods,” says Laurie Craft, GRCF program director. “A lot of what we’re focused on is preventing the economic impact of foreclosure on the family and on the neighborhood.”
The GRCF will loan $2 million to the Great Lakes Capital fund to finance repairs of some of the HUD homes. Dyer-Ives will loan $100,000. After the homes are sold, the money will be paid back to the two foundations.
“Our goal is to get the fund up to $3 or $4 million with the help of philanthropic dollars, banking dollars and corporate dollars, and supplement the money the city and county are receiving from HUD,” Craft says.
Source: Lee Nelson Weber, Dyer-Ives Foundation; Laurie Craft, Grand Rapids Community Foundation
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Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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