During a special session held Dec. 24, the Jefferson County Commission voted to formally enroll in the Montana Community Reinvestment Plan (MCRP), a new program that aspires to ease the path to home ownership for first-time buyers and provide more than $500,000 in loan assistance to Jefferson County residents.
MCRP, which will disburse roughly $50 million in mortgage support throughout the state, will be administered on a per-county basis by a Community Reinvestment Organization (CRO). Jefferson County, along with nearly half of all participating municipalities state-wide, selected the Housing Authority of Billings, now known as Homefront, to act as its CRO.
Homefront was selected by Jefferson County over Neighborworks Montana, a competing housing education and financing organization based in Great Falls. The Commission determined that Homefront’s was better equipped to meet MCRP’s match requirement, which stipulates that chosen CROs must raise a dollar in external investment for each dollar of state funding.
