After D.C. housing officials abruptly changed the rules of a cash-strapped program for first-time homeowners this fall, the D.C. Council voted Tuesday to try to restore opportunities for an untold number of lower-income residents who were effectively barred from the program under the new criteria.
The council action caps a tumultuous year for the District’s flagship Home Purchase Assistance Program (HPAP), which ran out of money over the summer and was revived in October under new rules that significantly limited available aid.
The legislation, which passed on an emergency basis Tuesday during the council’s last legislative meeting of the year, ensures that any HPAP applicant who was found eligible for the program before Oct. 11 will not be subject to the new restrictions. Those restrictions capped HPAP aid at 30 percent of a home’s price and caused some lower-income participants to no longer qualify for loans they had lined up that were based on the previous program criteria.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Meagan Flynn over at The Washington Post
