Yuma County gets HUD funds to help aid lowincome homeowners

Low-income homeowners waiting to receive help from Yuma County may have an increased chance of assistance, thanks to a grant from HUD.

The Yuma County Board of Supervisors recently passed a motion to accept a $150,000 grant for the HOME Consortium, a group composing Yuma County, the City of Yuma, the City of San Luis, the City of Somerton and the Town of Wellton, from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

HUD has obligated themselves to pay as much as $17.5 million to Yuma County through the HOME Consortium in previous years.

The $150,000 that Yuma County will receive will go to families at the top of a first-come, first-serve waiting list. Nancy Ngai, a community planning coordinator for Yuma County, estimated that the people at the top of the waiting list have been waiting for several years.

Yuma County will notify the people at the top of that list that they’re next in line for help from the county. After this, they go through a process to determine if they’re qualified to receive help based on information given to the county including tax records and mortgage payments. The county then does an inspection to determine how much they’ll be rewarded.

The money will never change hands from the county to the homeowners, said Ngai. Instead the county will pay a contractor do the work on the home. The work that the county wants to see done is repairing homes so that they’re up to code and making them more energy efficient.

“We’re always striving to help residents of Yuma,” said Ngai. “Any assistance we can provide to make a more safe environment they live in, that’s our goal.”

At least two housing units should be rehabilitated with the money from this grant, said Ngai. “Hopefully we’ll be able to do more,” said Ngai. “But to give assurance to the county, we can say that we plan to have two units rehabilitated.”

Yuma County and the other entities involved in the HOME Consortium have home rehabilitation programs and housing assistance programs in place that have been in place for multiple years and operate with funds from HUD.

The funds from this grant won’t be made available until Jan. 1, 2020, and will only be available until March 1, 2021.