Officials to see foreclosed Long Island homes Wednesday

It'll be a tour of the times tomorrow, when officials spend the day looking at Long Island homes stricken by the foreclosure crisis.

Acting as guide from Elmont to Mastic, the nonprofit Long Island Housing Partnership will take several federal and state officials by bus to see seven properties that it acquired under the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program, overseen by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. That program allocated several Long Island nonprofits and municipalities money to buy empty foreclosures and rehab them as affordable housing.

So far, the nonprofit has $10.4 million to buy properties, said the nonprofit's head, Peter Elkowitz. About $6.1 million has been spent or allocated toward 45 homes that have been already purchased or are in contract, he said. About $2.6 million has been set aside for renovations.

Officials hope to get a sense of how the federal program is working. They'll visit foreclosed homes in the midst of renovations, including the first two that will be done soon, with the home buyers about to close.

The bus passengers will include HUD's deputy regional director, JoAnna Aniello, who oversees the New York and New Jersey region, and Brian Segel, director of neighborhood stabilization for the New York State Housing Finance Agency, nonprofit officials said.

The 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. tour will give time for officials to rub elbows with the two county executives and Babylon Town's supervisor but no time for lunch. Those will be boxed and bolted down on the bus.

"We can't kill time," Elkowitz said with a laugh. "We have a lot to cover. You know how long Long Island is and the distances. In order to get a real, true picture of what's being done over Nassau and Suffolk . . . we're going to have to go to different areas."