Gov. Kathy Hochul announced on Thursday $46 million in new state housing grant awards, including more than $7.7 million for organizations and homeowners in the North Country.

The grants are expected to serve 155 housing units in the region and are targeted at helping low- and moderate-income homeowners repair their homes, modify them for safety or make a down payment on a new home.

“As housing costs continue to rise, this significant investment will help carve out a path to affordable homeownership for 1,400 New York families,” Hochul said. “My administration is using every tool at our disposal to address the state’s housing crisis, and we will continue to push forward on programs, strategies and funding initiatives that put New Yorkers in safe, affordable homes.”

Adirondack Roots, formerly known as the Housing Assistance Program of Essex County, received a $255,563 Access to Home grant to make accessibility modifications on homes. The Access to Home grant program funds accessibility modifications on homes for low- and moderate- income people with disabilities. The grant allows them to continue living in their homes or return to their homes instead of relocating to a new home with greater accessibility or to an assisted living facility.

Adirondack Roots Executive Director Megan Murphy said that the organization is currently administering an Access to Home grant. The new grant will be administered over the next two years. In order to receive Access to Home funding from Adirondack Roots, people need to contact the organization’s office and submit an application. The organization will check that an applicant’s income qualifies for funding. The applicant can be any age and can live in a single-family home or apartment — as long as their landlord approves the accessible modifications — but must have a medically-documented disability.

Essex County received $1.25 million from the state Community Development Block Grant Program — the largest award in the North Country and the second-largest award statewide in this round of funding — to replace manufactured homes. Adirondack Roots is the subrecipient of this grant. This means that, though Essex County received the grant, Adirondack Roots will be administering it. PRIDE of Ticonderoga, a non-profit housing organization based in Ticonderoga with a similar mission to Adirondack Roots’, will be co-administering the grant.

“We’re very excited about that. We’ve been doing more manufactured home replacements. We’ve done about a dozen over the past couple of years,” Murphy said. “It’s just a very strong impact in Essex County.”

According to Murphy, while manufactured homes make up around 2% of the housing stock across the state, in the North Country, they are about 10% of the housing stock. Adirondack Roots currently has a waitlist of about 18 manufactured or mobile homes that need to be replaced. They will make a significant dent in that waitlist with this new grant.

“There’s a lot of need, and that’s why we’re excited Essex County was given this award,” Murphy said.

When Adirondack Roots replaces a manufactured home, they also improve the site. Murphy said that these improvements include installing a concrete pad for the home to sit on, insulation, skirting, water and septic work. The new manufactured homes are more energy-efficient, as well, meaning that most people see their utility bills go down after their homes are replaced. It takes Adirondack Roots about $150,000 to fully replace and upgrade one manufactured home.

“It’s not just replacing a manufactured home, it’s upgrading the whole quality of life for people,” Murphy said. “We see such a difference.”

The CDBG Program, which is federally funded but administered by the state, gives localities grants for the purpose of improving the community. The grants are sometimes used for housing rehabilitation, water and wastewater assistance and helping first-time homebuyers make down payments. The town of Jay received a $298,320 CDBG last year to make accessibility improvements to the town’s community center and replace a diesel generator with a propane generator. The town of North Elba received a $500,000 CDBG in 2021 to create a housing repair assistance program. The program granted loans to local homeowners for home repairs they normally wouldn’t be able to afford.

Adirondack Roots also helped the town of Moriah apply for a CDBG, which it received in this round of funding. The $262,195 grant will make improvements to the town’s drinking water wells and septic systems.

“They had identified a few homes on a private water system that’s not really operational anymore, so what we need to do is income-qualify folks and work with the town of Moriah to identify those homes that would be moving off that private water system,” Murphy said.

Adirondack Roots is also helping Hamilton County apply for a CDBG.

There were several other types of grants awarded across the North Country on Thursday, including RESTORE grants, which give financial assistance to senior citizen homeowners to bring their homes up to code, and the state HOME program, which grants funds to rehabilitate single-family housing, assist with down payments and replace mobile or manufactured homes, among other uses. All grants were administered by the New York state Division of Housing and Community Renewal.