The Southeastern Utah Association of Local Governments offers various programs to help income qualified households in Carbon and Emery Counties with housing. One of the programs that is available is the USDA Mutual Self Help Construction Housing Program. Castle Country Radio was able to sit down with Program Manager, Vikki Ori to get all the details about the program.

“We have this program Mutual Self Help Construction through USDA, and what this is, is an income qualifying program. So, for instance, a family of one to four, would need to have a household income under $66,300.00. So if you are under that amount you would qualify for the program. What it is, just like Dave said, it’s a sweat equity program, where you are required to have volunteers. Its on the philosophy of the barn raising from the past, where people would go into their community and they would help each other build their homes, so they would gather together and do that labor,” said Ori. Other requirements to qualify are you can not currently have a home or mortgage payment, have good credit and can qualify for a 502 mortgage to cover the cost of building.

Those that qualify for the program will work with the program’s general contractor so no prior construction experience is required to participate in this program. “Keith Cox is our Construction Supervisor is his title. Keith goes in and he teaches the participants the skills that they need to build the home. So they work as a team, they have a group charter and they put in 17 hours a week and they also get volunteers for another 13 hours, so they gather together with Keith and they do 65 percent of the labor on the home,” said Ori. This program would be ideal for anyone who has the desire to achieve home ownership.

If you are interested in learning more about the Mutual Self Help Construction Housing Program officials are currently taking appointments for pre-approvals. “So what that means is they would call my office (435) 613-0026. They would make an appointment with me, and I would sit down with them for about 30 minutes. I would just check things to see like their income, and if we could get them qualified for enough to build the house. Through that pre-approval process we talk about credit score, the normal things you talk about when you apply for a loan,” stated Ori. Officials are trying to assemble a wait list for group 3.

For further information on the programs contact Vikki Ori at (435) 613-0026 or visit the website at http://seualg.utah.gov/