The Chautauqua County Land Bank Corp. is in the process of finalizing details to establish a loan fund to assist individuals and families improve the communities in which they live.

Last week when the county Land Bank held its monthly meeting, Gina Paradis, land bank executive director, told the board they are finalizing the details with Home HeadQuarters of Syracuse on a loan fund that will be used to assist homebuyers with purchasing property.

The land bank’s rehab program works to stabilize neighborhoods by targeting blight and/or declining properties that are negatively impacting neighborhood property values. By acquiring these properties, land bank officials can clean them up, secure them and offer them at below market value to interested purchasers who will commit to renovating the property to specified levels. The reinvestment rehabilitates the property and helps to reverse the trend of declining property values in the neighborhood.

Paradis said the new program would be a loan fund with Home HeadQuarters, which is a nonprofit organization that is a designated community development financial institution.

She said a community development financial institution can operate like a bank for community redevelopment initiatives.

“(Home HeadQuarters) has a loan fund with Syracuse, Albany and Buffalo land banks,” she said. “So we will also be doing one where we will fund part of it and (Home HeadQuarters) will leverage funding to create a fund that is five to six times the amount we provide.”

Paradis said the county Land Bank will fund $75,000 to $100,000 to start the new loan fund with Home HeadQuarters. She said the loan fund will be used to work with transitional housing that will be bought and rehabbed with the hope of servicing populations who may have a harder time getting a mortgage or financing for a rehabilitation project.

“It will provide an alternative in the rehab,” she said. “Most of our houses have not been mortgaged by most bank standards, so this will help us to reach people who might have the funding to buy a house, but will need additional money for the renovations. This will help broaden the reach of our program and provide more access to our program to more populations.”

Paradis said applicants wanting a loan will be screened by Home HeadQuarters officials. One of the criteria will be for participants to go through a first-time home buyer course, which Chautauqua Opportunities and Chautauqua Home Rehabilitation and Improvement Corp. (CHRIC) offers locally.

“We will be working with those programs to make sure people have either gone through the course before applying for a loan or that they will be enrolled in the course as part of the process,” she said.

Paradis said hopefully the loan fund will be available to county residents by this summer.

In other business, Paradis also discussed with the board about a new pilot program in Jamestown that will collaborate with several organizations to start a regular neighborhood cleanup program. She said the collaborative effort will include the city of Jamestown, which includes the Development Department, mayor’s office, Jamestown Police Department, Parks and Recreation Department, Public Works Department, the Jamestown Board of Public Utilities and the Jamestown CIty Council Housing Committee. The collaborative effort will also include the Jamestown Renaissance Corp. and local churches.

“It’s more than one event. In the past, there was Hands-On Jamestown, but that was just one event per a year,” she said. “What we are trying to create now is a whole program initiative to have multiple events.”

Last fall, Paradis said a neighborhood cleanup program in the Forest Heights area was held by the Zion Covenant Church, which also included the city of Jamestown, Jamestown Renaissance Corp., Jamestown Public Schools teachers and Chautauqua County Land Bank Corp. There were about 35 volunteers, including Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist and Jeff Russell, At-Large city councilman.

“We kind of had an introductory event to work together, see how it came together and how the neighborhood embraced it,” she said. “So it was kind of a test product. What we are going to be doing is more fully integrated. We will now expand the program out to include other volunteers and stakeholders to create a program instead of just one event.”