LIMA — The City of Lima has more than doubled assistance for residents looking for housing. The First Home Lima program is expanding its reach to meet the needs of community members. Deputy Director of the Department of Housing and Neighborhoods Carmillia Zion weighed in at the mayor’s press conference Wednesday morning.
“The City has had this program for many years but we have made some changes to the program,” said Zion.“We have increased our down payment assistance money from $6,000 to $14,999.”
Zion reminded community members that the program is solely for residents who live or are interested in homes in the City of Lima.
“We still have our same partners,” said Zion. “WOCAP will be a housing counseling agency. Scott Frenger with New Home Lima will also be administering the program. New applications will be available March 1st.”
Zion said the increase in assistance was to stay consistent with the increase in rates. The program is continuing to change in other ways as well. Zion said instead of community members first going to the city, they will now go to their lender for pre-approval to correctly identify the type of house they can purchase based on credit score and income.
“It is a program that we have had for over 20 years,” said Zion. “With us being an entitlement city, that gives us a guaranteed amount of money annually so that money is for us to use.”
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development provides money to the city of Lima to fund housing programs just like this one.
According to the HUD website, Community Development Block Grants entitle communities to create programs to help revitalize neighborhoods, increase economic development and provide improvement to community facilities.
Communities like Lima create programs to prevent blight in neighborhoods and to aid in the needs of a particular community. The city of Lima will be accepting applications for the program on Wednesday, March 1st.
For more information reach Carmillia Zion at 419-221-5146 or by email at [email protected].
Reach Precious Grundy at 567-242-0351.
