Cuyahoga County Council approved a plan to work with CHN Housing Partners to award about three dozen aspiring homeowners up to $20,000 each to make down payments, if they qualify.

The down payment assistance program is available in most cities in the county but not Cleveland, due to federal restrictions. (See the list of cities here.) The $872,000 that the county plans to spend comes from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Home Investment Partnership Program. 

Council Member Pernel Jones Jr. said at the meeting that the funds will help an estimated 38 home buyers over the next two years.

The program applies to single-family homes that applicants intend to live in. 

Applicants also:

• Must complete an eight-hour, online homeownership course (which is free)

• Must not have owned a home in the past three years

• Must earn 80% or less of area median income

More eligibility information is available on the county’s web site. You can also call CHN at 855-764-LOAN (5626)

Assistance for two very different businesses

Council approved a grant incentive agreement of up to $1.47 million to support Canon Healthcare USA’s plan to move into the former IBM facility at East 105th Street and Cedar Avenue. Council Member Patrick Kelly said the company will “create 50 full-time research jobs averaging at least $150,000 per year” and as many as 100 manufacturing and training jobs in the future.

Canon Healthcare USA, a subsidiary of Japan-based Canon Inc., acquired the 43,000-square-foot building in February. The company plans to use the site to develop “state-of-the-art technologies in imaging systems such as MRI, CT, Molecular Imaging, Ultrasound and X-ray,” according to a press release. The work is part of a partnership with the Cleveland Clinic.

Council also signed off on an economic development loan of nearly $921,000 to help Catanese Classic Seafood move into a Greater Cleveland Food Bank facility at 15500 S. Waterloo Road. Catanese, a family-owned business that has been based in the Flats since 1982, will bring 122 jobs — seven of them new — to the Collinwood site.

The Catanese family sold its land in the Flats, along the Cuyahoga River, to the Metroparks last year, and the park system may use it to expand waterfront access for the public, according to NEOtrans blog.

Services for at-risk children

County Council approved a batch of contracts, totaling about $9.8 million, to provide services to families in or at risk of entering the child welfare system. Sixty-five percent of the funds come from the county’s Health and Human Services Levy. The rest comes from the federal government.

The contracts are with:

Beech Brook ($220,000)

Catholic Charities Corp. ($1.39 million)

City of Lakewood ($1.3 million)

Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority ($500,000)

The East End Neighborhood House ($800,000)

Harvard Community Center ($700,000)

Murtis Taylor Human Services System ($1.8 million)

The Centers for Families and Children ($900,000)

University Settlement Slavic Village LLC ($1.35 million)

West Side Community House ($830,000)

Read the meeting notes from Documenter Cassie Park: