irwa.freeforums.org

As consultants to public agencies, we are finding that we are acquiring and relocating residential owner occupants who are (1) upside down in their mortgages and/or 2) unable to secure loans for replacement dwellings. We are attempting to develop some policies (under Last Resort Housing?) to recommend to our clients on a project by project basis that will result in fair and equitable treatment of all displaced persons. We have both federally and locally funded projects.

If you have developed or have implemented policies that we might learn from, we would like to hear from you. We intend to have some planning sessions in the San Francisco Bay Area with right of way professionals in the immediate future to address this issue. Your experience and comments would be appreciated.

Just this morning NPR ran a story on a USDA program that assists lower income families (I think income had to be at least 15% lower than avg for their county) obtain mortgages with no money down - it is for 'rural' areas but apparently that only means a town of less than 25,000 population, so many suburbs qualify.

Here is link to NPR story.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=99942811