With whole neighborhoods in distress after a tsunami of foreclosures hit South Florida, the federal government’s quarter-billion dollar fix-it program is now beginning to pick up steam, just as crucial deadlines loom around the corner.

The Neighborhood Stabilization Program, originally launched as part of the 2008 Housing and Economic Recovery Act, was designed to combat the side-effects of rampant foreclosures by propping up neighborhoods left in disrepair after the housing market collapse.

The strategy: Buy up foreclosed properties to renovate and resell or rent, hopefully encouraging low- and middle-income residents to settle into areas known for abandonment and blight.

“NSP was kind of like a `stop the bleeding’ [effort] for the foreclosure crisis,” said Matthew Martin, planning specialist for the Kirwan Institute at Ohio State University, and co-author of a recent study on NSP’s impact in Florida. “It wasn’t intended to completely turn things around, but to simply stabilize things.”

Full story is available on Miami Herald