Richmond getting $2 million to buy foreclosed homes

The city of Richmond will receive $2 million to purchase and rehabilitate foreclosed homes for resale to lower-income families.

The funding is part of a $17.5 allocation from the Neighborhood Stabilization Program announced yesterday by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to address the mortgage-foreclosure problem throughout the state. Kaine allocated $7 million from the fund in April.

From 2006 to 2008, Virginia's foreclosure rate increased from 0.24 percent to 1.73 percent. According to the governor's office, 16,000 foreclosed homes remain vacant throughout the state.

"Virginia is not immune from our national economic problems, and we are continuing to take steps to ease the housing crisis by finding and applying solutions," Kaine said in a statement, released after a housing forum in Northern Virginia attended by members of the state's U.S. House delegation and U.S. Sens. Jim Webb and Mark R. Warner, both Democrats.

Virginia received $38.7 million from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development in the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008. The money is being administered by the state's Department of Housing and Community Development, which allocated funding based on a competitive grant process.

Of the $17.5 million allocation, $15 million is being awarded to 28 "high-need neighborhoods" from Northern Virginia to Hampton Roads. It will be used to renovate 136 homes for resale to lowand lower-middle-income families at a discount.

The remaining $2.5 million is targeted specifically to counties in the northern Shenandoah Valley, where the foreclosure crisis is cresting.

The governor's office provided a list of where the $15 million is going:

• Alexandria -- $936,955

• Fairfax County -- $1 million

• Habitat for Humanity of Virginia -- $1.5 million

• Hampton -- $2 million

• Newport News -- $700,000

• Norfolk -- $1,794,375

• PEOPLE Incorporated in partnership with the city of Bristol -- $859,330

• PEOPLE Incorporated in partnership with the Russell County -- $1,162,670

• Portsmouth -- $2 million

• Richmond -- $2 million

Suffolk -- $971,444

Contact Jim Nolan at (804) 649-6061 or .