By CASSANDRA SHOFAR | Staff Writer

MEDINA — Hope is in the wind for people threatened by home foreclosure or already a victim.

Using grant money from a Neighborhood Stabilization Program, the city will be able to target key areas in need of assistance. The grant is a “special one-time program” released by Congress and spread out by the states specifically to address foreclosures, city Planning Director Greg Hannan said Tuesday.

Medina and Wayne counties are the recipients of $1.8 million, Hannan said, which will be shared among the counties and the cities of Medina, Brunswick, Wadsworth and Wooster.

“These six entities together have to develop a plan for spending these funds to address foreclosures in their regions,” he said, adding the plan will set in place priorities as far as which neighborhoods will be targeted.

While details of how the money will be spent are still vague, possibilities include purchasing foreclosed properties, rehabilitation, offering financial assistance to homeowners and code enforcement, Hannan said.

The money is aimed at preventing a foreclosure or at those properties already foreclosed on from becoming dilapidated and abandoned, he said, adding the plan the entities come up with will be submitted to the state for approval by the end of February.

The program is a result of the enactment of Title III, Division B, of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, Medina Mayor Jane Leaver said.

Ohio received allocations of around $258 million under the stabilization program, according to the Ohio Department of Development’s Web site, and of those funds the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded $141.2 million directly to 22 Ohio communities and $116.9 million to the state.

“You’re eligible based on your number of foreclosures and number of projected foreclosures,” Leaver said. “And the two counties together will select somebody to distribute these funds.”

She added this could be in-house or contracted out, but they will have to decide as a group what they will be concentrating on, such as houses already foreclosed on that need repairs or those that have just started the process of foreclosure.

In 2008, there were 960 foreclosure filings in Medina County, the county clerk of courts office reported.

At Monday night’s Medina City Council meeting, members agreed to let Medina County be the lead organization to do the paperwork and filings to the state, Leaver said.

Hannan added: “(The grant) will definitely have some benefits to the people it will serve, but it will have to be spread out among six entities.”

Shofar may be reached at 330-721-4044 or cshofar@ohio.net.