First sale approved of Muskegon home rehabbed with federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program money

Andrew Trzaska | November 11, 2010

Muskegon’s City Commission unanimously approved a resolution to allow the sale of the first home rehabilitated by the city’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program.

The four-bedroom, two and one-half bath home will be sold to Kenneth Baird, and a family of six will live in the house. The purchase price indicated at Tuesday’s city commission meeting was $48,500, with a subsidy no greater than $15,000.  Baird is a first time homebuyer, and multiple family members accompanied him at the meeting to hear the vote.

Started in fall of 2008, the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) is part of the Community Development Block Grant, and uses federal dollars to “for the purpose of stabilizing communities that have suffered from foreclosures and abandonment”, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s website. Federal funds for the NSP are managed in Muskegon by the Community and Neighborhood Services Department (CNS), which is both rehabilitating houses deemed fit to restore and tearing down ones deemed unsafe to the community.

The house was purchased by the CNS office at 940 Wood from the Muskegon County Land Bank with NSP funds, and all repairs were also made with those funds.

The CNS office is working on multiple properties in Muskegon right now, and Muskegon Heights has received federal money as well.  Other Michigan cities that have received funding include Wyoming, Benton Harbor, Jackson, Battle Creek and Kalamazoo.

The program has received in three waves, first through the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, then the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009, and most recently through the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.