Do you own a house in Warren County? Does it need upgrades, such as a new roof, windows, siding, or insulation? Are you low income or living on a fixed income and can’t afford those upgrades?
If you answered yes to those questions, you could receive up to $40,000 in free repairs from a $750,000 grant given by the Tennessee Housing Development Agency in 2014 and split equally between the city of McMinnville and Warren County.
Due to a lack of qualified applicants after the grant was first offered, the state has allowed the deadline to be extended another year.
McMinnville Mayor Jimmy Haley is urging churches, civic groups and the community as a whole to make sure anyone who might qualify applies for this grant.
“We have to get the word out about this grant,” said Haley. “We’ve been given another year.”
Receiving up to $40,000 in free home upgrades sounds too good to be true. Haley believes skepticism could be one of the reasons why qualified homeowners didn’t apply.
“I do believe the people who would qualify for this are very skeptical so they didn’t apply,” said Haley. “We need to do whatever we have to do in order to reach out to those people. We would hate to for a homeowner to miss out on this chance because they were hesitant to apply.”
The money comes from a federally funded HOME program that promotes preservation and rehabilitation of housing for households of low income.
Since 1992, THDA has utilized over $300 million in HOME funds to construct or rehabilitate over 10,500 affordable housing units.
As it did the first time, UCDD will arrange and publicize a meeting for interested homeowners who want to learn more about the grant. Applications will be available at the meeting. Applicants are scored based on need and income, among several other criteria, and a priority list generated from those who qualify. This grant cannot be used on mobile homes.
More information about the HOME program in Tennessee is available at www.THDA.org.