Kokomo gets $1.3 million to clean up housing blight

Lt. Gov. Sue Ellspermann announced the award Thursday. Funding is through Indiana's Hardest Hit Fund Blight Elimination Program. It provides an opportunity for local units of government in all 92 counties to compete for funding to eliminate blighted, vacant and abandoned houses and decrease foreclosures.

The money is part of a program overseen by the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority. A total of $75 million is being distributed statewide.

The city of Kokomo was the only unit of government in Howard County to apply for funding.

“We have been aggressive in the past about addressing unsafe structures in order to make the city of Kokomo’s residential neighborhoods safer and a more attractive,” Mayor Greg Goodnight said. “These funds will enable us to address dozens of abandoned and dilapidated houses that are neighborhood eyesores and driving down property values of nearby homeowners.”

Qualifying properties must be uninhabitable and beyond repair and not listed on any national, state or local historic register.