State offering assistance to small rental property owners, workshop in Houma Monday

Colin Campo, The Courier
·2 min read

The state is offering a $32 million block grant to assist with rebuilding rental properties. A workshop is being held in Houma, Monday, to help out.

The workshop will be held Monday, March 27, will help people sign up for the grant at 301 W Tunnel Blvd. The program is to help smaller renters to rebuild, repair, and house people affected by Hurricanes Laura, Delta, Ida, or last year's floods. The workshop will take place from 10 a.m. until noon.

The assistance comes in the form of a deferred loan, but renters have an opportunity to not have to repay it.

"The state put these funds together for landlords who have not been made whole because of Hurricane Ida, so if they have units they can not rent, that still need repairs, this can help them," Kelli Varnado, Director Department of Housing & Human Services said. "So the landlord would come up with all of the funds upfront and the state would reimburse them, and if they have a qualified low-income person in it for five years it's forgiven."

A rental property like those that would qualify for assistance through the $32 million block grant offered by the state to assists rental property owners trying to repair since recent disasters.
A rental property like those that would qualify for assistance through the $32 million block grant offered by the state to assists rental property owners trying to repair since recent disasters.

The Louisiana Housing Corporation is offering assistance through a partnership with the Office of Community Development to aid those affected by the recent disasters. The program will begin taking applications May 1, through July 31.

To be eligible the renter has to be a residential rental property owner, Community Housing Development Organization, Local Public Housing Authority, non-parish local development agency, or a Nonprofit Organization with a board approved mission to further affordable housing.

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The structure must have no more than seven units; site-built, modular, or manufactured home; must be within one of the qualified parishes; must complete an environmental review; and may not be located in a special flood hazard area.

FEMA recently made Terrebonne flood maps official and owners may check on flood zone status here: https://msc.fema.gov/fmcv.

The eligible parishes can be found on the Terrebonne Government website here, http://www.tpcg.org/index.php?f=news&p=view&id=2619, but include Lafourche, Terrebonne and Assumption.

Further workshops will continue to be held through April 5, and can be found here http://www.tpcg.org/files/news/documents/News-2619-1456.PDF. For further questions contact disasterwebinfo@lhc.la.gov.

This article originally appeared on The Courier: Workshop held Monday to help small property landlords get grants