Skyline CAP is awarded $64,000 housing grant

Contributed Article
Published: October 9, 2008

Skyline Community Action Program has been awarded $64,000 from U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD), for Comprehensive Housing Counseling services that assist homeowners with foreclosure prevention and other housing counseling services.
Skyline CAP, based in Madison, is the designated community action agency for Greene, Madison and Orange Counties in Virginia.
The funds are part of $50 million in housing counseling and counseling training grants announced recently by U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Steve Preston. 
Hundreds of thousands of American families will have a greater opportunity to find housing or keep the homes due to the grants, officials say.
Housing counseling grants will assist families in becoming first-time homeowners and remaining homeowners after their purchase.  HUD-approved counseling agencies not only provide homeownership counseling, but also offer financial literacy training to renters and homeless individuals and families
  “In this time of financial and - especially—housing crisis, we are able to better serve our clients, says Jack Naylor, Housing and Community Programs Manager for the agency’s office in Greene.
“The housing counseling grant provides not only one-on-one client counseling, but also information, outreach and staff training for the latest updates on programs to help clients.“
The agency has offered housing counseling and assistance to residents since 1994, but has not always received funding from HUD.  Skyline CAP’s counseling program is designed to assist low-income residents with information and resources to maintain and reach the most fundamental goal of safe and affordable housing. The program offers outreach and counseling to first-time homebuyers, renters, the homeless and homeowners. Counseling includes homeownership and rental assistance programs, HECM, fair housing assistance and information, money management and financial education, emergency assistance to reinstate utilities, rent delinquency or mortgage default and homebuyer education workshops.
HUD awards annual grants under the housing counseling program through a competitive process. Organizations that apply for grants must be HUD-approved and are subject to biennial performance reviews to maintain their HUD-approved status. Skyline C.A.P. is one of only two agencies in the immediate area receiving funding for housing counseling; Piedmont Housing Alliance, located in Charlottesville, is the other.
Record Editor April Taylor contributed to this report