Rahm Finds Another $20 Million

Amazing how this guy finds all this money....from private sources:

• Nine Chicago neighborhoods riddled with foreclosures will get a blitzkrieg of cash and attention to turn those properties around, thanks to a $20 million loan pool unveiled Wednesday.

  With foreclosures rising by 20 percent in 2010, and resources steadily declining, Mayor Rahm Emanuel is trying a new approach to combat the epidemic that threatens to tear down entire inner-city neighborhoods.

• The goal of the so-called “Micro-Market Recovery Program” is to bring new ownership to 2,500 foreclosed homes over the next few years using up to $20 million in loans provided by the John T. and Catherine D. MacArthur Foundation.

  That seed money is expected to leverage private capital — primarily from area banks holding foreclosed properties — to grow the loan pool to $50 million.

  The city hopes to use the money to “foster the reoccupation” — either by assisting homeowners under water, rehabilitating foreclosed homes and providing “multiple incentive programs” to potential buyers or by providing financing to “approved developers” who will market the units themselves.

Sounds like a whole bunch of people, not the least of whom are the MacArthur Foundation folks, are buying themselves access to Rahm's political future.

"Approved developers?" Area banks? That's going to make interesting reading, indeed. And all these private funds aren't required to jump through the same hoops that people receiving government money have to, right?