Gwinnett County is continuing a program aimed at stabilizing its neighborhoods hard hit by foreclosures while giving qualified families an opportunity at home ownership.

The commission has recently approved three new contractors to keep the program going.

The federally-funded Neighborhood Stabilization Program, created several years ago to address the nation’s economic crisis, has provided Gwinnett with close to $20 million since 2009. Using contractors, it allows the county to buy up foreclosures, turn them around, and then resell them to qualified buyers.

“The idea is to stabilize the neighborhoods and also to provide housing for working families,” says Bill Kingsbury, director of the Gwinnett NSP.

He says the county bought close to a 100 homes with the $14 million it received in the first round of the program.  It has received just over $5 million for round two and has purchased 15 homes so far. Many of those are in the Avington subdivision in Lawrenceville where both the builder and the lender went under.

Kingsbury says the county hopes to purchase 40 additional homes during the second round which will continue for two more years.

In order to qualify, a family must: currently not own a home; be able to qualify for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage; complete an eight hour HUD-approved homebuyer’s course; and meet certain income requirements.  For example, the maximum income for a family of four is $83,150.

As a benefit of the program, buyers receive $22,500 towards the purchase price and don’t have to repay it if they remain in the home for at least 10 years.

“The advantage is… their monthly payments will be less and so they can, perhaps, buy a little more home than they could (have) if there wasn’t the $22,500 available,” says Kingsbury.

Theresa Wiist and her husband took advantage of the program in 2009. The couple was living in an apartment when their twins were born and needed a larger living space.

“We went from a $1,400 payment a month to $1,000 and we’re living in a brand new home,” she tells WSB’s Sandra Parrish.

Wiist says it only took the couple two months to go through the qualification process, and they actually enjoyed attending the homebuyer’s course.

“It has tremendously saved my husband and I (sic),” she says.  “We had six-month-old baby girls when we did all this and moving houses was stressful, but I cannot imagine doing anything differently.”