ANNAPOLIS, Md — Governor Larry Hogan is looking to create homeownership opportunities and revitalize neighborhoods in Baltimore City as well as Cambridge.
The governor announced the launch of the Homeownership Works (HOW) pilot program, a $10 million economic recovery initiative that will rehabilitate homes to create new homeownership opportunities while revitalizing Johnston Square in Baltimore City and Pine Street in Cambridge.
“Homeownership Works is a game-changing approach that will serve as a national best practice for community renewal,” said Governor Hogan. “The program will revitalize neighborhoods to encourage new homeownership while helping existing homeowners and creating healthier housing markets.”
The program will be administered by the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD). More than 100 Maryland homeowners are expected to benefit from new affordable homeownership opportunities through grants and loan investments. The program will focus on critical home repairs for existing homeowners, increasing the stability of targeted housing markets, and provide pro bono legal services for lower income homeowners to solve title issues that restrict their ability to access grants and loans.
“Even if a home is historic, it needs to be maintained, and housing values in many older historic neighborhoods are declining due to aging and the prevalence of vacant and deteriorated housing stock, and the cost to restore or build new housing,” said Secretary Kenneth C. Holt of DHCD. “This new, targeted homeownership initiative will help fill that financial gap, creating new affordable homeownership opportunities, helping existing homeowners, and stabilizing irreplaceable historic communities.”
Over the next year, DHCD will work with the City of Cambridge and Habitat for Humanity Choptank on the Pine Street initiative, and with the nonprofits Rebuild Metro Baltimore and Rebuild Johnston on the Johnston Square initiative. The cooperation with these partners will help finance the rehabilitation of vacant homes and the infill construction of new homes for affordable homeownership. The goal of this project is to also recruit existing homeowners in need of critical home repair and improvements.