WEST VIRGINIA (WOAY) – The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has awarded more than $14 million to make major capital improvements to public housing properties in West Virginia.
The funding is part of $2.7 billion awarded to public housing authorities in the nation. View all local grants.
“These grants are enabling public housing authorities to modernize and preserve their housing stock in communities across West Virginia at a time when there is a critical need for decent, safe affordable housing,” said Joe DeFelice, Regional Administrator of HUD’s Mid-Atlantic Region.
HUD’s Capital Fund Program offers annual funding to approximately 2,900 public housing authorities to build, repair, renovate, and/or modernize the public housing in their communities. Housing authorities use the funding to complete large-scale improvements such as replacing roofs or making energy-efficient upgrades to replace old plumbing and electrical systems.
To help provide residents with decent, safe and sanitary housing and respond to the growing demand for affordable rental housing, HUD uses the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD), a comprehensive strategy that complements the Capital Fund Program. RAD offers a long-term solution to preserve and enhance the country’s affordable housing stock, including leveraging public and private funding to make critically needed improvements.
For more than 75 years, the federal government has been investing billions of dollars in developing and maintaining public housing, including providing critical support through Capital Fund grants.
In 2011, HUD released Capital Needs in the Public Housing Program, a third-party independent study that estimated the capital needs in the U.S. public housing stock. The study found the nation’s then-1.1 million public housing units were facing an estimated $25.6 billion.
Since Congress authorized the RAD demonstration in November 2011, results have shown progress in generating significant additional capital for distressed public housing. As a result, 130,000 public housing units have converted to a more sustainable Section 8 financing platform, all without any additional costs to taxpayers. Public housing authorities and their partners have generated over $8.6 billion to preserve or replace distressed units and support local jobs in their communities—all without additional federal resources.
