Friday, Oct 21 2011 10:43AM

Nearly 1,500 homes will be built with more than $26 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) through the agency's Self-Help Homeownership Opportunity Program (SHOP).

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan stated SHOP will provide affordable housing for low-income residents who, with the guidance of professionals, will help construct their new residences.

"These grants are about families devoting their own sweat and labor into their American Dream," said Donovan. "With the help of these organizations and volunteers, families are able to see that dream become reality brick by brick."

Three of the four organizations, typically called intermediaries, to receive the "sweat equity" grants through SHOP include Community Frameworks of Bremerton, Washington, the Housing Assistance Council, and the Tierra del Sol Corporation of Anthony, New Mexico. The grants for these organizations total over $12 $million. The fourth recipient is Habitat for Humanity with over $14.6 million for its affiliates.

The HUD program provides funding for land acquisition and site development for many self-help housing programs. One of the biggest programs that uses SHOP funds provided by the non-Habitat intermediaries are those organizations funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development's (USDA) Mutual Self-Help Housing Program. This program helps very low- and low-income residents construct their own homes with both an administrative grant that provides funding for staff support and low-interest construction loans which convert to mortgages for the owner builders. SHOP funds are critical to making the lot costs affordable to the builder/borrowers and helping the organizations to purchase property for the program. Rural Community Assistance Corporation is one of four USDA contractors that provides assistance to the organizations with the USDA administrative grants.

For further reference, check out this source: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development