Wide-reaching Housing Rescue Legislation Moves Forward
KWAME HOLMAN: Gerry Connolly is chairman of the Fairfax County, Virginia, Board of Supervisors and a Democratic candidate for the House. Situated just outside Washington, Fairfax is the wealthiest county in the U.S. on a per capita household income basis.
Nonetheless, Fairfax, too, has housing troubles. So last month, Connolly’s board passed a measure to extend financial counseling to hundreds of endangered homeowners, help families find second trust mortgages, and use county funds to buy and restore distressed properties to prevent blight.
GERALD CONNOLLY: If you can help stabilize a neighborhood by buying that key property at the end of the street, and rehabbing it, and putting a family back into that home, you can help turn around a distressed neighborhood. So it’s one of the first in the country. And we think it could be a model in anticipation of these new federal dollars.
