By Jim Reece - The City of Ione received a letter September 30th rejecting a request for funds for low-income home ownership program. The state Department of Housing and Community Development sent a letter to Ione City Manager Kim Kerr notifying of that Ione’s application was not chosen for funding. Sharon I. Sarno of the Division of Financial Assistance in the letter said that upon close of the application period, June 25th, the Department of Housing had received 128 applications requesting a total of 118 Million Dollars in CalHome funding. The requests sought some of the 60 million dollars available in the program and the department was “a little overwhelmed with the magnitude of the response from California cities, counties and nonprofits seeking support for their home ownership programs.” Ione’s application was one of 10 that did not reach a funding threshold to win an award of funds. Sarno said 118 applications passed the threshold, totaling 109 Million Dollars in requests. Of those, 61 applicants were awarded funding from the 60 million dollars in funding. Part of the threshold of funding was that “applicants had existing programs in the areas of mortgage assistance and/or owner-occupied rehabilitation lending and they evidenced the capacity to operate a program successfully.” The letter encouraged Ione to apply for funding under the CalHome Program in 2009.