Released: August 26, 2008

Communities become home buyers to fight decay

Source: Vikas Bajaj, N.Y. Times (Free Registration)

As a wave of home foreclosures courses through the United States, some of the nation’s hardest hit cities think they have found a way to ease the blight left on their communities by the crisis.

Using taxpayer and private money, Boston, Minneapolis, San Diego and a handful of other places are buying foreclosed properties to refurbish and resell them to developers and homeowners in an effort to prevent troubled neighborhoods from sliding into urban decay.

The efforts so far have been taken on a small scale. But local officials say they can become an important pillar of any housing recovery with the help of $4 billion in federal grants that were part of a housing bill Congress approved in July.

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