HUD – Housing and Urban Development
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban development or HUD helps the citizens of the country to find affordable homes. The mission of HUD is to increase ownership, support community development and increase access to affordable housing free from discrimination. The U.S. Housing act was enacted in the year of 1937. In 1965 the Department of Housing and Urban Development Act created HUD as a Cabinet-level agency. The agency educates the people of the country and helps individuals in buying, owning, selling and renting homes.
HUD also offers homes for sale which can be booked through real estate agents who are approved by the Department. You can get a list of the HUD properties which are up for sale from websites which are managed by companies approved by HUD in each state. If you are planning to buy a home you can also check different programs offered by HUD such as the Good Neighbor Next door, .Hurricane Evacuees discounted sales, Homeownership for public housing residents and Indian Home Loan Guarantee Program and find out if you can buy under any of these programs. Settlement charges for buying a home are fixed by HUD.
HUD also helps people who are interested in selling their homes. HUD has given links to certain websites on their site which will be beneficial to anyone planning to sell his home. Apart from helping in buying, selling and renting homes the department also takes various initiatives in funding community development activities. Some of the programs undertaken by HUD to do community development include Community Development Block Grants to Entitlement Communities, Community development block grants to States and Small Cities, Disaster Recovery assistance and others. There are also various economic development programs undertaken by HUD. These include Community Renewal, Economic Development Loan Guarantee Fund, Brownfields Economic Development Initiative and others.
Other programs are the Affordable Housing program and the Special Needs Assistance. Programs under Affordable Housing include the HOME Investment partnership programs, Self-Help Homeownership Opportunity Programs (SHOP) and Homeownership zones. Programs such as the Emergency Shelter Grant, Supportive Housing Program, Shelter Plus Care, Housing Opportunity for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) all fall under the Special Needs Assistance Programs.
There are various other services offered by HUD such as helping people faced with foreclosure to get out of the situation. HUD has approved counselors who can advice how best to handle such a situation. HUD has achieved great success in its initiatives to promote housing and in 2000 67.7 percent people in America had a home ownership the highest ever in American History.
