ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, August 8, 1996 TAG: 9608080059
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
Housing agencies will be allowed to buy, renovate and sell homes to tenants of public housing under a plan to help 25,000 residents become homeowners, Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros said Wednesday.
Under the plan, the federal housing department will seek permission to use Section 8 certificates, now used exclusively for rent, to pay mortgages. The local agencies also will continue their sales of existing public housing.
``Today is about helping people move from public housing to homeownership,'' Cisneros said at a news conference beneath the broiling sun in front of a city-owned home in need of $90,000 worth of repairs.
The initiative is the latest in a series of election-year announcements about programs to help boost the home-ownership rate from the current level of 65.4 percent of households to a record 67.5 percent by 2000.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates that more than 200,000 working families live in public housing and that many want to own homes.
Housing agencies have sold 25,000 units of existing public housing nationwide since the 1970s, including more than 4,000 since 1993.
Those sales will continue under the program announced Wednesday. But housing agencies will also be encouraged to work with community groups to locate, buy, renovate and sell homes to public housing residents.
In many cases, residents will pay just the cost of renovation.
HUD also is seeking permission from Congress to allow people who use Section 8 certificates to help pay rent in the private market to use those vouchers to subsidize a monthly mortgage payment as well.
LENGTH: Short : 39 linesby CNB