USDA sets loan limits,
grant addresses disabilities
USDA Rural Development announces new area loan limits
BANGOR — USDA Rural Development has announced new area loan limits for the Direct Single Family Housing Program. Effective April 15, Rural Development will adopt the following loan limits:
• Aroostook and Washington counties — $170,000;
• Androscoggin, Franklin, Hancock, Kennebec, Knox, Oxford, Penobscot, Piscataquis, Somerset and Waldo counties — $180,000; and
• Cumberland, Lincoln, Sagadahoc and York — $220,000.
For more information on Rural Development’s Housing Programs, contact Dale D. Holmes, housing program director, at 990-9110; or one of the USDA’s area offices located in Presque Isle, Bangor, Lewiston or Scarborough.
In Maine, USDA Rural Development has area offices located in Presque Isle, Bangor, Lewiston and Scarborough, as well as a state office, located in Bangor. There are 83 employees working to deliver the agency’s Housing, Business, and Community Programs, which are designed to improve the economic stability of rural communities, businesses, residents and farmers, and improve the quality of life in rural Maine. In Fiscal Year 2010, USDA Rural Development invested over $450 million, including leveraged funds, in the state of Maine. Further information on rural programs is available at a local USDA Rural Development office or by visiting USDA Rural Development’s website at www.rurdev.usda.gov/me.
Workforce Board, NMDC awarded $376,286 grant
CARIBOU — The Aroostook and Washington Counties Local Workforce Investment Board and the Northern Maine Development Commission have been awarded a $376,286 grant from the Maine Department of Labor as part of a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor for a statewide disability employment initiative.
According to Ryan D. Pelletier, executive director of the Local Workforce Investment Board, the purpose of the grant funding is to improve the educational, training, and employment opportunities and outcomes for adults with disabilities, including asset development.
The project is designed to support integrated services and funding to explore individual and systematic issues concerning the employment of people with disabilities – with a view to facilitate innovative, long-term solutions.
“We are very excited that our workforce region has been selected to participate in this project and look forward to ensuring that people with disabilities have programmatic, physical, and communications accessibility to resources within our two county area,” said Barry D. McCrum, chairperson of the Local Workforce Investment Board.
Pelletier explained that an individual will be hired to serve as a disability resource coordinator during the grant term which ends Sept. 30, 2013.
“The individual will work primarily at the Presque Isle Career Center and the coordinator will provide expertise and serve as a resource person to the workforce investment system and to persons with disabilities helping them navigate the one-stop Career Center system and ensuring people have the resources and employment opportunities available,” Pelletier said.
