Kokomo Lauches Program to Buy Some Population

September 6, 2011

News Release

Indiana cities are often in competition to attract new businesses to their communities. The City of Kokomo, Indiana has developed an incentive program it hopes will attract residents of nearby communities to purchase a house in Kokomo.

The city has enlisted the help of its major employers to draw employees who work in Kokomo, yet live elsewhere, to consider purchasing a home there.

The Kokomo Homeownership Investment Program provides homebuyers with incentives. Among those is a $5,000 reimbursement for exterior improvements on a newly purchased home. In addition a local moving company is offering a ten percent discount when moving a new resident or family to Kokomo.

Kokomo’s largest employers support the program and are promoting it to their workforce. Companies such as Chrysler, Delphi Electronics and Safety, and Haynes International were helped in recent years with municipal loans or abatements, and now these companies are returning the favor by touting Kokomo’s relocation incentives and benefits of living in the community in which they work.

Kokomo Mayor Greg Goodnight explains the economic data that inspired the program, “Twenty percent of our workforce lives outside of our community. The problem is compounded by the fact that this 20 percent earns 30 percent of the income generated here. We’ve been investing our city’s limited financial resources in quality of life projects. Now we are stepping up the campaign to attract our workforce to also live here.”

More Kokomo Homeownership Investment Program details can be found at www.trykokomo.org.

Source: City of Kokomo