The U-S senate returns today and near the top of their agenda: Mortgage relief. A pending bill offers $300,000,000,000 billion dollars in mortgage help to borrowers and lenders.
The bill also allocates nearly $4,000,000,000 to rehabilitate homes in older neighborhoods.
The Columbus Housing partnership says it hopes to get some of that money. Partnership head, Amy Klaben says her organization wants some of the federal money to re-hab homes in the city's older neighbrohoods. Klaben points to North 21st street between broad and loang as a model for other projects.
In the last four years the Greater Columbus area has experienced more than 30,000 foreclosure complaints. Says Klaben.
Klaben says the partnership buys foreclosed properties in areas like North 21st street, brings them up to code and then sells them. Project coordinator Cheryl Gadson says C-H-P re-habbed a handful of houses on North 21st. She says before the work began, many properties were vacant and shoddy.
It was distressed, depressed.There were many homes that were boarded up, vagrants out here. Drugs were rampant. So it really fell into disarray. Says Gadson.
If the senate bill is finally approved, President Bush threatens a veto unless the provision to give grants to groups like C-H-P is stripped out of the bill.