The Department of Housing and Urban Development Wednesday launched a $50 million effort to help state and local governments address swelling inventories of foreclosed properties. With the new financing, which falls under an existing program called the Neighborhood Stabilization Program,

HUD will grant $44.5 million to nine national organizations and $5.5 million to local communities to buy, rehab and sell foreclosed properties in some of the country’s worst-hit residential neighborhoods. Grantees also are permitted to create “land banks” for vacant properties, or to offer down-payment and closing-cost aid to low- and moderate-income homebuyers. The agency also will “dispatch experts into these communities to help them better manage their neighborhood stabilization programs so that small problems don’t become big ones,” HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said. The largest share of the national funding – $26.2 million — will go to three groups: ICF Incorporated, Enterprise Community Partners and the National Council for Community Development. The local grants will be distributed in $500,000 and $750,000 increments to groups in 10 states.