HUD AWARDS $500,000 TO REVITALIZE MAYESVILLE, SC "MAIN STREET"
Grant will provide funding for affordable housing at the historic Kineen Hotel

ATLANTA - The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded Mayesville, S.C. a $500,000 grant today to transform the historic Kineen Hotel into eight affordable housing units. This funding will allow the town and its local private partners to incorporate affordable housing into the plan to revitalize its historic central business district or "Main Street".

The grant is awarded through HUD's HOPE VI Main Street Program that provides financial support to small towns to ensure they have the resources to include affordable housing in their ongoing effort to rejuvenate older, downtown business or districts.

"HUD is delighted to have a role in bringing Mayesville's downtown back to life," said HUD's Southeast Regional Administrator Edward Jennings Jr. "This funding will create jobs and allow Mayesville - the birthplace of educator and civil rights activist Mary McCloud Bethune - to include affordable housing into its efforts to preserve and rejuvenate the town center."

Mayesville, a town of a little more than 1,000 residents, will rehabilitate the Kineen Hotel to bring eight one and two bedroom affordable housing units, with one set-aside for a very low-income family. The Kineen Hotel, built 1911, was once the focal point of the downtown area. Using local funding, Mayesville also purchased an abandoned property to create a park to compliment the downtown revitalization.

The town of Mayesville, Edsel Whitaker of the Whitaker Trust, Rehab Development, Inc., and its affiliate, Rehab Development Inc., will work with Martin Meek of Campbell Meek & Associates Architects, Inc., to oversee the grant and design the construction of the new housing.

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HUD's mission is to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all. HUD is working to strengthen the housing market to bolster the economy and protect consumers; meet the need for quality affordable rental homes: utilize housing as a platform for improving quality of life; build inclusive and sustainable communities free from discrimination; and transform the way HUD does business. More information about HUD and its programs is available on the Internet at www.hud.gov and espanol.hud.gov. You can also follow HUD on twitter @HUDnews, on facebook at www.facebook.com/HUD, or sign up for news alerts on HUD's News Listserv.