Hocking Athens Perry Community Action will receive $300,000 to provide essential home repairs and handicapped accessibility modifications for low- and moderate-income homeowners in southeast Ohio, State Representative Kevin Ritter (R-Marietta) announced in a release from the Ohio House of Representatives.
The grant comes from the Ohio Department of Development through the Housing Assistance Grant Program, which uses Ohio Housing Trust Fund dollars, Ritter’s Ohio House release said. The local funding is for homeowners who are at or below 50 percent of area median income in the counties Hocking Athens Perry Community Action serves — Hocking, Athens and Perry counties, the release said.
The award is part of a larger statewide announcement: the Department of Development recently announced $6.8 million in grants for projects to help improve housing and provide down payment assistance for nearly 1,200 low- and moderate-income Ohioans, the Ohio House release said.
With the grants, nonprofits can contract with local qualified construction companies to complete essential home repairs such as heating systems, water heaters, plumbing systems, severely deteriorated roofs, walls, windows, doors and hazardous electrical systems, among other work, the release said.
"This funding provides an opportunity to help more families when they need an essential repair or an accessibility update completed in their home," Ritter said in the Ohio House release. "It’s great to see resources allocated specifically for Southeast Ohio so work can be done in the community to ensure safe housing and a better quality of life for residents."
Statewide, the Housing Assistance Grant Program helps nonprofit organizations promote more affordable housing opportunities and improve housing conditions through essential home repairs, renovations for handicap accessibility, limited down payment assistance and homebuyer education, the release said.
For a homeowner at or below half of area median income, the covered work is the kind that decides whether a house stays livable through an Ohio winter: a failed furnace, a leaking roof, a hazardous electrical panel or a bathroom that needs accessibility modifications after an injury. The program’s design pairs the nonprofit administrator with local qualified construction companies to complete that work, the release said, rather than handing homeowners a check and leaving them to find a contractor on their own.
What happens next: Hocking Athens Perry Community Action will administer the $300,000 locally for qualifying homeowners in its three-county service area. The Ohio House release did not give an application date or deadline, so none is reported here.
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