The Obama administration announced today that it will give $500 million to housing finance agencies in North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island and South Carolina to help them finance programs to help people struggling to afford housing.
The program is aimed at areas with high concentrations of people living in economically distressed areas, which the administration defined as those counties in which the unemployment rate exceeded 12% in 2009.
North Carolina will receive $159 million, Ohio will get $161 million, Oregon will get 88 million, Rhode Island will receive $43 million and South Carolina will get $138 million.
The program is the latest installment of the Obama administration's housing assistance plan.
On Friday it announced a plan to provide incentives to have mortgage issuers rewrite the terms of the mortgages of some people who are unemployed.
In February, the administration announced it would provide $1.5 billion in grants to housing finance agencies in Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan and Nevada.
