Durbin: Project Rebuild Act Would Help Turn Around Vacant Homes and Businesses

Press Release

In an effort to stabilize neighborhoods, rehab vacant and foreclosed homes and businesses, and create jobs, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) pushed for passage of the Project Rebuild Act while visiting Rockford today. The legislation would help rehab houses and businesses that have been abandoned through foreclosure by providing targeted assistance through formula funding and new competitive grants. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) estimates that Illinois could receive $351 million in Project Rebuild formula funding, as well as additional funding through the competitive grant process.

The Project Rebuild Act expands on the successful Neighborhood Stabilization Program which has already helped several of the hardest hit communities across Illinois - including Rockford - rehab and demolish vacant, foreclosed homes.

"Some vacant, foreclosed homes are boarded up with overgrown grass and obviously unoccupied. Other vacant, foreclosed homes are less obvious, but their impact is just as damaging to the local community. These properties can attract crime and decrease surrounding property values, creating a domino effect that seems never ending," Durbin said.

Since 2006, housing prices across the country have decreased over 30 percent, which has resulted in one in five homeowners being underwater on their mortgage. It is no different in Rockford where housing prices have declined by 27 percent since 2006.

"No one wins when businesses and homes are foreclosed on," said Durbin. "Not the owners who lose their properties, not the surrounding neighborhood when no one maintains the property, and not the local community when property values drop. The Project Rebuild Act will put Illinoisans back to work helping local governments redevelop and revitalize Main Streets and neighborhoods across our state."

Under the bill, which is sponsored by U.S. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), about $10 billion would be directed to states, cities, and non-profits through a formula modeled on the successful Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) and an additional $5 billion would be available through new competitive grants. Expanding on the bipartisan Neighborhood Stabilization Plan, the Project Rebuild Act would offer new grants for fixing up vacant commercial properties and strives to complement the abilities of private developers. It would also increase support for "land banking." Land banks work with communities to buy, hold, and redevelop distressed properties as part of a long-term redevelopment strategy. Nationwide, HUD estimates Project Rebuild would create over 190,000 jobs and be used to renovate 150,000 properties nationwide.

Source