Foreclosure Relief Plan Approved

The county hopes to have in place by June 1 a plan to help move low-income people into foreclosed homes.

County commissioners also hope the Neighborhood Stabilization Plan will put local contractors to work by fixing up some of those homes.

After voting 4-1 for approval of the application and documents, the plan now heads to the Florida Department of Community Affairs for review and final adoption.

The NSP is part of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, which allocated $541 million to Florida.

Hernando County's share is $4.3 million.

The money will be used in areas of the county with the highest number of current and potential foreclosures and the highest percentage of sub-prime mortgages.

In Hernando County, those areas would primarily be in Spring Hill, especially in the 34606, 34608 and 34609 ZIP codes.

Barring any changes at DCA, Hernando County would use the $4.3 million to acquire, rehabilitate and renovate foreclosed or abandoned residential properties and sell them to people whose income does not exceed 120 percent of area median income.

For a family of four, that would be $67,800 a year.

As part of the program, $1.3 million would also provide rental housing for people whose income doesn't exceed 50 percent of the area median income.

That would be $28,250 for a family of four.

The NSP was not without critics.

Resident Jason Sager proposed the county take what he called "wasteful federal welfare" money and send it to Fargo, N.D. to help the people there deal with the flooding of the Red River.

Health and Human Resources Director Jean Rags said the NSP is not public housing and the money must stay in the community under the plan guidelines.

Civic activist Janey Baldwin objected to commissioners' insistence that the administrators of the money try and keep it in the county and use local contractors and subcontractors as much as possible.

"We don't need some contractor just because he lives here to get the work," she said. "We need the best qualified."

Commissioner James Adkins took exception and said Hernando County is "blessed" to have some of the best contractors in the area.

Chairman David Russell stressed that a contractors' qualifications would be "paramount" in the selection.