A deadline is fast approaching for a grant opportunity for certain homeowners and renters in Greene County.

The Highway 144 Corridor Housing Initiative is offering two kinds of matching grants of up to $1,000 for residents in Grand Junction, Paton, Rippey and Dana to improve the overall attractiveness of a property. CHI Board member Annie Smith says these grants are targeted for the exterior of a property.

“That could mean replacing something or the upkeep of something, decking, painting, windows. But then it could be things like sidewalk, tree removal, if you have a dilapidated building or structure, something like that needs to come down. The kind of falls underneath that like just trying to increase that attractiveness.” 

Smith points out that the CHI Board has received about a dozen grant applications, but she encourages more before the application deadline on April 15th.

“The more the merrier. We have this money and that’s what I really want people to know is, we have this money. The (CHI) Board has done the work to try to secure these funds and earmark them, that’s really what it is is asking different places to earmark these funds for improvement. So we’ve done that work for you. So really we want people to use them because if they’re not used then we hope that they don’t go away, so use them.”  

Funding for the grants are from the participating city councils with their automatic allocation of funds from Grow Greene County Gaming Corporation, along with a three year Louis Dreyfus commitment from the Greene County Board of Supervisors, as well as Peoples Bank in Rippey and Grand Junction, Rolling Hills Bank in Rippey, Community State Bank in Paton and Home State Bank in Jefferson.

Smith adds grant awards will be announced in May and the projects must be done by November 30th. She says grant applications can be found at the participating banks, as well as libraries and community centers in the participating cities.