Rhode Island awards $12.7 million for entry-level homes in nine communities
The grants, the last from a 2024 housing bond, will help build 207 homes, 161 of them directly funded and priced below $400,000, state officials said.
MIDDLETOWN, R.I. — Rhode Island has awarded $12.7 million to 10 housing developments that state officials said will produce 207 homes in nine communities. The grants directly fund 161 homes priced below $400,000 for households earning up to 120% of the area median income.
Gov. Dan McKee and Housing Secretary Deborah Goddard announced the awards Thursday at the future site of Aquidneck Green in Middletown, which received the largest grant, more than $3.2 million.
The money is the second and final round from the $20 million Housing 2030 Entry-Level Homeownership Program, which is paid for by a 2024 housing bond. With this round, all of the bond money set aside for the program's homeownership grants has been committed, the governor's office said. The program gives competitive grants to for-profit and nonprofit developers and public housing authorities to build owner-occupied single-family homes, townhomes and condominiums in projects of five or more units.
Goddard said the program has supported 377 homes so far, 249 of them affordable to households at or below 120% of the area median income.
At Aquidneck Green, Marathon Development plans 36 three-bedroom modular homes on town-owned land. Five will be reserved for households earning up to 80% of the area median income, at proposed prices of $353,800, and 31 for households earning up to 120%, at $399,999, according to the state.
Other awards include about $2.1 million for 37 condominiums in Portsmouth, 22 of them funded by the program; about $2.1 million for 36 homes across five sites in Providence and West Warwick; 10 two-bedroom homes on Block Island priced at $265,000 each; and the conversion of a former funeral home in Lincoln into five condominiums.
McKee urged voters to approve Question 2 on the Nov. 3 ballot. Goddard said the proposed 2026 housing bond would put another $25 million into affordable homeownership development.
This brief was drafted by AI from a public agency or political press release and published by The New England Signal. Why we use AI for stories like this one.