Two Jersey City community organizations are among seven in North Jersey that have received grants up to $10,000 for neighborhood stabilization initiatives.
The Urban League Affordable Housing & Community Development Corporation of Jersey City and Garden State Episcopal Community Development Corporation (GSECDC) will receive the grants under the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey’s 2010 Capital One Technical Support Grants program; which is — as the title implies — funded by Capital One Bank.
The grants will be used to help organizations standardize and improve efficiencies in their rehabilitation programs, and to implement green rehabilitation standards in conjunction with their neighborhood stabilization efforts, which focus on communities that have been wracked by foreclosures and abandonment.
“We have selected organizations with a substantial history of building or renovating in their communities, which are also addressing the destabilizing impacts of foreclosure,” Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey executive director Diane Sterner says. “Many residents and their neighborhoods will once more have the opportunity to thrive.”
This is the second time GSECDC has received the grant; it has allowed the organization to increase its capacity to purchase, rehab and then resell bank-foreclosured homes to first-time homebuyers.
“In making decisions to acquire foreclosed homes for rehabilitation, GSECDC has to inspect properties, come up with estimates for repair and make offers in a 24 to 48 hour period,” says GSECDC real estate director John Restrepo. “The training and increased technological capacity we have gained has allowed us to successfully compete in this market and become the state’s first Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) grantee to acquire, rehab and resell an NSP home.”