Family moves into Somerton home financed under new HUD program
SOMERTON – The keys to the first home built here under a new affordable housing program were recently handed over to the new owners.
Jose Camarena, his wife Carla Lopez, daughter Kimberly and son Axel moved into a 1,300-square-foot, three-bedroom home on what was once a blighted lot on State Avenue.
Housing America Corp., a Somerton-based non-profit housing organization, helped the family secure a grant of $49,000 from U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development that has been applied as a downpayment on the house that listed for $163,000.
The family received the grant through the HOME Investment Partnership Program, a HUD program which allocates grants to cities and non-profit groups like Housing America to help low-income families achieve home ownership.
The program is different from another federally subsidized housing program administered by Housing America, the Mutual SelfHelp housing program.
In the Mutual Self-Help program, clients of Housing America clients can get access to low-interest loans or grants to build new homes in return for doing most of the construction work themselves. The HOME Investment Partnership Program, however, serves those who don’t have the time to devote to construction.
“A lot of people can’t contribute 60 percent of the work that the program requires,” said Manuel Figueroa, president of Housing America’s board of directors. “Our concern has been how to help those people who can’t do it.”
Figueroa noted that the HOME program services another benefit in promoting redevelopment of blighted property. The Camarena family’s home and an adjacent home also financed through the program are located on lots where an abandoned church building and abandoned house previously stood.
Housing America also has completed a home in San Luis through HOME and is scheduled to build one other home in that city and one in Wellton through the same program.