What is a Facade Grant?

"The Covington Residential Facade Program, funded through the Community Development Block Grant Program, is administered by the City of Covington's Community Development Department. The purpose of the program is to assist home owners with improvement to facades (visible from the public right-of-way) of qualifying residential properties."

"Households interested in participating must submit a pre-application with required information. Households determined to be eligible will then complete a formal application and provide additional documentation." 

                       

- From the seven page Residential Facade Program 2012-2013 Program Guidelines document. www.makecovingtonhome.com

So, what did we do? (besides stop working on our front 'yard' back in April of 2011 and wait for  a grant...) Well, we applied for the grant.

The grant is for a minimum of $1000 and a maximum of $5000 for owner occupied homes, and for rental properties it's a $1000 minimum with a max of $2500, but the owner must contribute a matching amount of funds to the project. Seems worth the effort, eh?

We submitted the pre-application on June 30th, and were told it was on a first come - first served basis. We got to City hall at 8:30 AM to drop of the application.  We were not the first in line. We weren't even the tenth. There were LOTS of applications put in before ours.  We were late and it didn't look good for our possibilities.

And then we waited. 

and waited.

A year later, as you know by now, I said enough was enough -- get the ball rolling without the grant. So phase one is still underway, but mostly done. Maybe installing the wrought iron fence will just have to be phase two.

What's hilarious is that we were contacted by the City Development Program just as we were dumping the dirt into the new front yard.  It took a year to get around to us, but they were proceeding with the grant application process and wanted to meet with us. 

And our documentation.

They wanted:

• Six months worth of bank statements
• W2's
• Last year's tax returns
• Pension/IRA asset documentation
• Driver's Licenses
• Three pay stubs
•  and a copy of the deed to our house

Once they establish that we meet their requirements, they will then drop by to find out what we plan on doing.   We'll let you know how that goes in a few months.

Until then, I'll be attempting to outline the plan here, as well as get estimates on the cost.