MOULTRIE, Ga. — Low-income homeowners may soon find money available to make repairs and improvements to their residences under a state grant to the City of Moultrie. Timing on the grant, though, is still up in the air.

The Moultrie City Council approved some rules and policies in support of the grant from the state Department of Community Affairs last week.

“They’re still going through the hoops, but we’re going to get it,” City Manager Pete Dillard said in an interview after last Tuesday’s meeting.

Dillard said the DCA called the city about the $300,000 grant a few months ago, but he still doesn’t know when to expect the money.

The grant requires a maximum of $50,000 per house, Dillard said, but the city wants to focus on smaller amounts so the money will benefit more homeowners. Recipients must own the residence they’re improving — it won’t help renters — and a big focus will be on making the homes more energy-efficient, thus saving the residents money on every month’s utility bill.

The city has long heard complaints about large utility bills, in particular from low-income residents who can least afford them.

In other housing news from last Tuesday’s city council meeting, Community Ventures recently sold its first home in Northwest Moultrie and has begun clearing land for its second.

The house on the corner of First Street and Second Avenue Northwest was finished in February of last year and had been on the market ever since. Dillard said part of the problem was a pricing issue that’s being addressed on the second house.

Another part, he said, was that a nice home was built in an area where it’s surrounded by older, less attractive houses. As more are built and more are sold, a neighborhood will develop, he said.

“The first one’s really hard,” he said. “The rest will be easier to sell. … I think in the next five years you’ll see First Street Northwest transformed.”

Dillard said many residents on the street are “good people who take care of their property,” and he hopes as Community Ventures’ development takes root, it will make it easier for residents already in place to have a nicer neighborhood.

Community Ventures is a non-profit development company based in Camilla. They build a house, help a low-income buyer get assistance for the down payment and a low-interest loan, use income from the sale of that first house to build another, and repeat the process to help communities address a shortage of housing among low-income residents.