AFTER: These photos show a home before and after repairs made with funding from Community Connection's Housing Rehabilitation Loan Program.

LA GRANDE — Help is available for moderate- and low-income homeowners who’ve been putting off making repairs around the house because the cost was too high.

Community Connection of Northeast Oregon, a nonprofit social service agency covering Grant, Union, Baker and Wallowa counties, is accepting applications for its Housing Rehabilitation Loan Program, which provides zero-interest loans of up to $24,999 to qualifying applicants.

The money can be used for a wide range of projects, including plumbing and electrical work, structural repairs, roof replacement, siding installation, painting, heating system upgrades and new doors, windows or flooring. The loans don’t have to be paid back until the owner moves out, sells the home or dies.

While there is no age requirement to apply for a loan, the program can be especially helpful for seniors living on fixed incomes and facing significant home repairs.

“Those loans can keep people in their homes,” said Grant County Judge Scott Myers, who serves on the program’s loan policy committee.

To be eligible, applicants must meet certain requirements, including the following:

• Real market value of the home must be $250,000 or less.

• Borrower must have annual income no greater than $40,250 for an individual or $57,450 for a family of four (limits slightly higher in Wallowa County).

• Home equity must be greater than the value of outstanding home loans plus cost of loan-funded repairs.

• Home must be adequately insured.

What makes the program go is a revolving loan fund built on federal grants awarded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Kale Elmer, the program manager, explained.

“We’ve got a pretty large amount of loans out there right now,” he said. “As those funds get paid back, we can do more loans.”

At the moment, he added, the program has more than $2.3 million in loans outstanding. The fund balance for available loans had dropped to less than $250,000, but the account has been recharged by the awarding of a $400,000 grant applied for by Grant County. The counties in Community Connection’s service area take turns applying for grants, with the money available to any qualified applicant in Northeastern Oregon.

“We have been running this program for a number of years across four counties, and we kind of cycle through,” Elmer said. “Last time it was Union County.”

The Housing Rehabilitation Loan Program has been running for decades. It was operated by individual cities and counties around Northeastern Oregon before Community Connection took the reins some years back. The program has 137 active loans in its portfolio, and another 168 loans have been repaid.

“When I started, the oldest loan we had was from 1980,” Elmer said. “That loan was paid back last year.”

To find out more about Community Connection’s Housing Rehabilitation Loan Program or to access application, visit https://ccno.org/housing-rehabilitation-loan-program/. To speak with program manager Kale Elmer, call 541-963-3186.

County         Active loans          Balance

Grant                  11                 $194,118

Baker                  28                 $520,638

Union                  77                 $1,319,889

Wallowa               21                 $302,816

Total                    137               $2,337,461 

Source: Community Connection of Northeast Oregon