In a brutal housing market that has left many young families entirely locked out of the dream of home ownership, the Kingston City Land Bank offers a lifeline. Earlier this month, the nonprofit added another two families to its growing roster of Kingston residents who have found an escape hatch from the realities of skyrocketing interest rates and a local market overrun with well-heeled downstate transplants.

“Both households were residents local to the area, hardworking families just starting out with young children,” said KCLB Executive Director Michael Gilliard who added that the two families were currently in the closing process on their new homes. “This program offered them an opportunity to become first-time homebuyers here in Kingston.”

The land bank was founded in 2018 as part of Mayor Steve Noble’s strategy to create more stable neighborhoods by helping local renters achieve home ownership, while moving vacant and deteriorating properties back onto the tax rolls. The organization takes homes held by the city for back taxes and transfers them to the land bank. The land bank then rehabs the homes and sells them to moderate-income first-time buyers at below-market prices. Applicants, who must make no more than 80 percent of the Area Median Income, are vetted and receive home ownership counseling through Newburgh-based Pathstone Community Improvement.

Applicants are vetted based on criteria like income, family size and ability to pay associated costs like taxes and utilities. Qualified applicants are then assigned numbers by Pathstone which are then forwarded to land bank officials. Numbers are drawn from a hat at a land bank board meeting and the chosen families are offered the sale. Gilliard said on average, each home receives between 100 and 150 applications. Once the home is sold, the land bank is responsible for paying all back taxes owed on the property.

The latest round of rehabs included three-bedroom homes at 29 Rogers St., 63 German St., 237 East Union St. and 169 Hurley Ave. Gilliard said all four homes had been vacant for substantial periods and required gut renovations. The rehab also included a switch to all-electric appliances and HVAC systems. As is typical with land bank properties, the renovations cost between and two and three times the eventual sale price, with donations and government grants making up the difference.

“It’s a hard model,” said Gilliard. “But it puts families in homes.”

That model got a little easier this time around when the land bank became the first in New York to access funding through a new program. The state Division of Homes and Community Renewal’s Legacy Cities ACCESS program. The program works with the Community Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit community development bank that provides financing for affordable and workforce housing projects across upstate New York. The latest round of rehabs used $866,661 in ACCESS funding and another $600,000 from another HCR program funded with settlements reached by the state with financial institutions following the 2008 housing crisis.

Land bank board Chair Daniel Kanter said the ACCESS program would provide an ongoing funding stream to help the nonprofit carry out additional rehabs in the city.

“We are excited to be the first organization to provide completed, affordable homes under HCR’s amazing new Legacy Cities ACCESS Program,” said Kanter in a statement. “We look forward to continuing our partnership with the City of Kingston and all involved to scale our efforts under this program to provide many more well-designed, affordable homes for current and future residents of our community.”

Two families have been selected to for the homes on Rogers and German streets. They will each pay $194,995 for the property, well below market rates. Gilliard said he expects a mandatory sales and marketing window for the Hurley Avenue and East Union Street homes to open up later this month. Meanwhile, renovations are already underway on another three homes that are expected to be completed and ready to occupy next year.