Affordable housing programs receive $300,000 in grants

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Monday, Jan. 7, 2002 | 8:39 a.m.

The Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco will award more than $300,000 to two Nevada nonprofit organizations Tuesday to help develop affordable housing for senior citizens and families in Northern and Southern Nevada.

The annual grants total more than $37 million for the states of Arizona, California and Nevada, $324,213 of which will go to two low-income projects in Elko and Las Vegas.

The bank will also announce its "Friends of Affordable Housing" award, which this year will go to Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. The award recognizes a member of Congress who has supported affordable housing.

The Las Vegas project helped by the grant will be developed by Nevada HAND, a nonprofit group that will get $227,935 to build 49 rental units for senior citizens at Stewart Avenue and 14th Street.

The senior citizen housing project, called Stewart Pines Phase II, will cost $4.4 million and is slated for completion in December.

"This grant money will help us with the construction costs for a project that will give market-quality housing to low-income senior citizens, who are a rapidly growing part of our population," Nevada HAND President Mike Mullin said.

Stewart Pines Phase II will begin accepting applications for the apartments in October from residents 62 years and older who earn less than $20,000 a year, Mullin said.

The Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco is the largest of 12 nationwide, with more than $140 billion in assets and $110 billion in outstanding loans to community banks, which in turn give loans to home buyers.

The community banks in each of the states covered by the San Francisco bank submit applications from nonprofit organizations each year for the grants.

Nevada HAND also received funding from the Nevada Housing Division, which gave about $3 million in equity for the Stewart Pines Phase II project, as well as $350,000 from the city of Las Vegas and an $850,000 loan from the California Federal Bank -- which submitted the nonprofit organization's application for the grant.

Anita Adams, director of affordable housing for the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, said that bank's grant program encourages private financial institutions such as the California Federal Bank to invest in the community, and the bank's loan to Nevada HAND helped strengthen the nonprofit group's application.