Housing Loan Fund Makes Record Payout

None by KCPW

(KCPW News) The State of Utah is investing a record amount of money in affordable housing. Last week, the board of the Olene Walker Housing Loan Fund approved seven and a half million dollars - the single largest payout in the fund's history - to help build 13 projects:

"We're targeting really the very low-income people, and in fact this is part of the governor's 10-year plan to end homelessness," says Gordon Walker, director of the Utah Division of Housing and Community Development, which oversees the housing loan fund. "Whether it be elderly, veterans, homeless or families that need assistance - they're all in this category and that's who we're targeting."

Recipients of the money are expected to pay it back over several decades. And Walker says all of the units made possible with the loan must be affordable for very low-income Utahns. The Road Home will receive one and a half million dollars from the loan fund to help purchase and renovate a former hotel in downtown Salt Lake City for homeless families.

Last week's payout leaves a mere 200-thousand dollars in the Olene Walker Housing Loan fund. But Governor Huntsman has asked the Legislature to replenish it with one-point-six million dollars that will be supplemented with federal funds.

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