HUD to Make Cash Drop on Tennessee
Looks like banks aren’t the only ones receiving a bailout from Uncle Sam this week.
While not nearly the tax dollar-o-rama that Wall Street might be getting, the federal department of Housing and Urban Development has launched what it’s calling a Neighborhood Stabilization Program, which essentially dumps a ton of cash on municipalities so that they can “acquire and redevelop foreclosed properties that might otherwise become sources of abandonment and blight within their communities.”
According to HUD, the Nashville-Davidson County area currently has a low “local abandonment risk,” with a 3.1 percent foreclosure rate. The department is still going to drop a cool $4,051,397 on the city, almost double what Chattanooga and Knoxville will get.
Then there’s Memphis, with its staggering—by Tennessee standards—6.7 percent foreclosure rate. It will receive $11,506,414 in HUD money. Someone should be sure to tell the feds that Memphian politicians would like their “neighborhood stabilization” dollars in non-sequential, unmarked bills.
