Affordable Housing Trust Chairman Richard DeMayo leads Tuesday's meeting.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Affordable Housing Trust on Tuesday awarded a fifth grant under the town's Mortgage Assistance Program.

 

By a vote of 4-0, the trustees agreed to give $15,000 to an single-income first-time homeowner looking to acquire a dwelling in town.

 

According to the application, the applicant sought the funds to go toward his or her down payment. The additional funds will remove the need for the borrower to carry private mortgage insurance, an additional monthly cost that stood between the potential homeowner and the loan, Trustee Stanley Parese said.

 

"Given that it's a first-time homebuyer, otherwise within the criteria, certified by the bank ... and wouldn't be able to get their loan or buy their house without the grant, I feel like that's what we're here for," Parese said.

 

Tuesday's grant would have been the fifth since the MAP was instituted late last year, but a recent application was withdrawn after the trustees approved the grant because it was discovered that the awardee did not meet all of the program's criteria.

 

"With the application that was withdrawn, the spouse of the applicant owns residential property," Parese told his colleagues. "The bank asked if that violates our policy. I responded that our eligibility requirements reference [federal law] … and that language clearly says neither of the spouses could have owned property or they're disqualified as a couple."

 

The withdrawal of a request granted at the trust's June 25 meeting prompted a discussion of the need to add a footnote to the program's guidelines explaining the federal law referenced. Parese volunteered to take on that job and also to refresh the guidelines with updated income requirements; the Massachusetts Department of Revenue has updated its area median income numbers since the MAP was created.

 

The trustees also discussed the board's practice of maintaining the anonymity of grant recipients.

 

When the program was created, the trustees were clear that they did not want to know the names of applicants when they considered the request. The theory was that disclosure of the name could influence the board in its deliberation.

 

Except for the first recipient, who consented to a news conference after closing on her home, the board has not revealed the names of other successful applicants.

 

Parese said he was contacted by a member of the community who asked that the board disclose the names of applicants after the money is awarded.

 

"Personally, I don't see a problem with that because it's going to be public record anyway,"he said. "Once [the home is purchased], the address, price, name of purchaser — all that is public record at the Registry of Deeds."

 

The board agreed that the grant recipients' names should be included in the minutes of the meeting when they become known to the board and noted that the program's guidelines specify anonymity only "during the time the Trust is evaluating individual Grant proposals."

 

The five MAP grants awarded so far have each been for the program's maximum amount of $15,000, bringing the total funds dispensed to $75,000 of the $100,000 the trust initially budgeted for the program.

 

The trust is funded through Community Preservation Act funds awarded by town meeting — $75,000 in 2014, $200,000 in 2013 and $200,000 in 2012, the year the trust was created.

 

In addition to the $75,000 in MAP awards, the trust has awarded $150,000 toward the Highland Woods senior housing project and spent $190,000 earlier this year to acquire two unimproved building lots. The trust also, in December 2012, spent $6,850 to partner with the town's Affordable Housing Committee to fund two studies, a housing needs assessment and an engineering study of the town-owned Lowry property.

 

The trustees on Tuesday agreed to take on another small expense.

 

It acquired the two building lots with the goal of forming a partnership with a non-profit like Habitat for Humanity to build homes on the sites. In the meantime, the sites require maintenance, specifically grass mowing. The trustees agreed to contact local landscape companies to inquire about the cost of monthly mowing on the properties.