May 8, 2010; Source: Ventura County Star | Here’s some good news out of Ventura County, Calif. According to the Ventura County Star, the Housing Authority, a nonprofit affordable housing agency, is capitalizing on the collapsed housing market by “scooping” up foreclosed properties and using stimulus money to turn them around.

The authority currently serves more than 5,000 seniors and low-income residents in Ventura. It owns and operates 716 public housing units and administers the Section 8 rent assistance program in the city, according to the Star.

The plan of the agency is to double the number of affordable units to about 360 in the next decade to create what the Star calls, “a modern and more pedestrian-friendly neighborhood.” The units will provide housing for farm workers, adults with developmental or physical disabilities, the elderly, and families earning low incomes.

Executive Director Ed Moses told the Star, “Because the authority began positioning itself a couple years ago to do more housing development and brought on experienced staff it has been able to capture federal stimulus funds and affordable-housing grants and to apply for state tax credits to pencil out its various projects.

With over 4,000 people on the waiting list to receive housing, the plan is but a drop in the bucket, albeit in the right direction.—Aaron Lester