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Government

Davenport begins accepting affordable home applications

City of Davenport

To help strengthen its neighborhoods, the City of Davenport's Urban Homesteading program is once again taking applications. Each year, it renovates and remodels vacant and abandoned houses, and then sells them at an affordable price.

Heather Johnson, lead financial specialist for the city, says the program has been fixing houses, with grants from the U.S. government, for 30 years.

Credit City of Davenport
The kitchen of the remodeled house of Farnam Street includes new cabinets and flooring.

The Urban Homestead program sells houses each year to low income people, up to  35,000 dollars for a single person, and up to 50,000 for a family of four.

Johnson says the program not only helps the community and the people who buy the houses, but also the workers who renovate the houses.

heather2.mp3
Big jobs for local contractors.

Since the city holds the mortgages, it tries to choose applicants who are financially stable. Two houses are for sale this year-on Farnam Street and on 16th Street.

Applications are due April 30th and more information can be found on the City of Davenport's website  at http://www.cityofdavenportiowa/homestead. Open houses will also be held at both.

A native of Detroit, Herb Trix began his radio career as a country-western disc jockey in Roswell, New Mexico (“KRSY, your superkicker in the Pecos Valley”), in 1978. After a stint at an oldies station in Topeka, Kansas (imagine getting paid to play “Louie Louie” and “Great Balls of Fire”), he wormed his way into news, first in Topeka, and then in Freeport Illinois.