Press Contact Only:
Margaret Matrone, NCHFA, 919-877-5606,
Connie Helmlinger, NCHFA, 919-877-5607,
The state will gain about $60 million of affordable housing as the result of the $15.5 million that the General Assembly appropriated for the N.C. Housing Trust Fund in the budget it passed this week.
The budget includes $7.5 million to produce independent and supportive apartments for persons with disabilities, including mental illness, and $8 million of recurring funds to build or repair housing for families and elderly persons with very low incomes.
“We’re very pleased that the General Assembly is making this important investment in affordable housing,” said Lucius S. Jones, chairman of the N.C. Housing Finance Agency, which manages the Housing Trust Fund. “We’re especially encouraged that this year’s appropriation increases the Trust Fund’s recurring appropriation from $3 million to $8 million.”
“Many people in the General Assembly—and many people in the business and advocacy communities—have worked hard to gain this appropriation for the Housing Trust Fund,” Jones said.
The $7.5 million of special funds to assist persons with disabilities continues an initiative the General Assembly launched in 2005. The effort will create independent and supportive apartments that will be affordable to disabled people who live on Supplemental Security Income (SSI), which is approximately $600 a month. Funds appropriated in 2006 financed approximately 400 apartments this year.
The effort is the result of a partnership between the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). In addition to the $7.5 million appropriated to the Housing Trust Fund to develop the apartments, this year’s budget includes $4.7 million appropriated to DHHS to provide rent assistance for the disabled residents.
The Housing Trust Fund is a state-funded and state-designed resource for financing affordable housing. The N.C. Housing Finance Agency pays all of the Trust Fund’s administrative costs, so that the entire appropriation goes directly into housing.
In its 20 years, the Trust Fund has financed almost half a billion dollars of housing construction. It has assisted more than 17,000 households, including nearly 7,000 elderly and disabled persons who were able to remain in their home thanks to emergency repairs and accessibility modifications.
A statewide coalition to increase the financing for the Housing Trust Fund was supported by 130 business and advocacy groups under the leadership of the N.C Justice Center, the N.C. Housing Coalition, the A.J. Fletcher Foundation and the United Way of North Carolina.
The North Carolina Housing Finance Agency is a self-supporting public agency. It has financed 176,000 homes and apartments in the last three decades, including nearly 74,000 homes for first-time home buyers. To learn more, go to www.nchfa.com or call 919-877-5700 or 800-393-0988
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