3 Cities in Line for U.S. Housing Funds

The cities of Lancaster, Palmdale and Santa Clarita will receive about $1.5 million in federal housing funds, boosting local efforts to aid poor and elderly residents, officials have announced.

The money comes from nearly $42.7 million in U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funds to be handed out across the state, Gov. Gray Davis said in a statement Tuesday.

The money will support projects in which private groups have also invested, said Elizabeth Brubaker, senior redevelopment coordinator for Lancaster. Her city will lend its expected $682,500 to a developer building a 194-unit apartment building for senior citizens, where units will rent for an average of $559 a month.

The building, intended for residents age 55 and up, will sponsor planned social activities, Brubaker said. “This gives them a place to be together with others,” she added.

Construction should be finished by summer 2002 at a cost of $11.9 million, said Ken Melton, financial advisor to the developer.

In Palmdale, the $500,000 grant will be pooled with the city’s own money to help poor families buy mobile homes in three trailer parks. Families will receive an average of $10,000 in forgivable loans to buy the trailers, said Elizabeth Hammond, the city’s housing coordinator. Officials are negotiating special prices with trailer manufacturers and loan terms with private banks, she said.

Meanwhile, about 10 Santa Clarita families trying to buy traditional homes will be aided by $420,000 earmarked for a loan program, city management analyst Dennis Luppens said. To buy and repair an existing home, families of four earning less than $40,000 annually will be eligible to borrow the money at reduced interest rates, he said.