The Santa Ana City Council this week awarded a $1.3-million contract to ANR Homes Inc. to rehabilitate and resell foreclosed homes under the federally funded Neighborhood Stabilization Program.
The city has received $17.3 million from the program since 2009 and so far has placed 36 families into rehabbed homes, according to a city staff report.
A Voice of OC story last year detailed the sluggish takeoff of the program in Santa Ana and other cities and counties throughout the nation. For the eight homes ANR rehabbed and sold during the first round of the program, it received more than $100,000 in developer fees.
In the VOC article, Paul Habibi, UCLA Anderson School of Management lecturer, said that the millions of dollars funneled to cities like Santa Ana for foreclosure relief isn’t nearly enough money to have significant impact on the foreclosure crisis.
In recent years, Santa Ana had 1,500 foreclosures, a monumental figure compared to the 36 homes that have been rescued.
The real impact, Habibi said at the time, is the image boost politicians receive when they announce these kinds of rescues. “It’s politically favorable to do something like this in the community,” Habibi said.