$12.7 Million for 207 Entry-Level Homes: Rhode Island Awards the Final Round of Its Bond Program Across Nine Communities, 161 Homes Priced Below $400,000
MIDDLETOWN, Newport County, Rhode Island: Governor Dan McKee and Housing Secretary Deborah Goddard announced on October 29 that Rhode Island has awarded $12.7 million to 10 housing developments that will produce 207 homes in nine communities. State officials said the grants directly fund 161 homes priced below $400,000 for households earning up to 120 percent of the area median income.
The announcement was made at the future site of Aquidneck Green in Middletown, which received the largest grant, more than $3.2 million. At Aquidneck Green, Marathon Development plans 36 three-bedroom modular homes on town-owned land: five reserved for households earning up to 80 percent of the area median income, at proposed prices of $353,800, and 31 for households earning up to 120 percent, at $399,999.
Other awards include about $2.1 million for 37 condominiums in Portsmouth, 22 of them funded by the program; about $2.1 million for 36 homes across five sites in Providence and West Warwick; 10 two-bedroom homes on Block Island priced at $265,000 each; and the conversion of a former funeral home in Lincoln into five condominiums.
The money is the second and final round from the $20 million Housing 2030 Entry-Level Homeownership Program, paid for by a housing bond approved by voters in 2024. With this round, all of the bond money set aside for the program's homeownership grants has been committed, the governor's office said. The program gives competitive grants and loans to for-profit and nonprofit developers and public housing authorities to build owner-occupied single-family homes, townhomes and condominiums in projects of five or more units.
Goddard said the program has supported 377 homes so far, 249 of them affordable to households at or below 120 percent of the area median income. McKee urged voters to approve Question 2 on the November 3 ballot, and Goddard said the proposed 2026 housing bond would put another $25 million into affordable homeownership development.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于罗得岛州Providence市的罗得岛州议会大厦（州政府所在地）。照片：Yuvraj Singh Babrah，CC BY-SA 3.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / The Rhode Island State House in Providence, seat of the state government. Photo: Yuvraj Singh Babrah, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
