Pinellas County expands low-income home repair program [Video]

PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — Pinellas County is offering a lifeline to people who thought they might never have enough money to make badly needed home improvements.

This month, county leaders voted to expand a forgivable loan program aimed at keeping people in their homes.

“Some of these families have been in their homes, you know, for a number of years. And they want to stay in the community. And it’s getting more and more difficult to do that,” said Sheri Harris with Pinellas’s Housing and Community Development office.

Harris says the county’s “Home Repair Program” is designed to help low-income residents maintain their homes – rather than seeing them fall into disrepair.

“It’s really the structural items that are going to help maintain at home for years to come,” said Harris. “So, that’s really what we want to …