Additional help may be available to DeKalb County residents whose property was damaged due to August storms and flooding.

Low-interest loans will be provided by the office of Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias through the Opportunity Illinois Disaster Loan Program to eligible residents waiting for insurance settlements or other aid.

“Someone who has received storm damage can go to a participating lender and apply for a loan up to the damage amount,” said Kati Phillips, deputy director of communications for the state treasury. “The bank then contacts us and we work with the bank to secure the loan.”

The Treasurer’s Office is authorized to deposit money at a reduced rate of interest in eligible financial institutions.

“Every day we post on our Web site our deposit rate,” Phillips said. “Right now our interest rate is 2.66 percent. We allow the bank to charge them up to three percent, so the max they can charge them today is 5.66 percent.”

The loan rate varies daily.

“We save the bank money, and the bank saves the consumer money,” Phillips said. “The low-interest rate is guaranteed for one year.”

Copies of the required application forms and a list of participating financial institutions in the state’s linked deposit program can be found on the Treasurer’s Web site, http://www.treasurer.il.gov.

“Those are banks that are eligible to work with us,” Phillips said. “They’re not necessarily banks that have given loans out already.”

Loan applications must be filed within 90 days of the official disaster declaration. DeKalb County was declared a disaster area in August 2007 according to Phillips.

“Opportunity Illinois is basically a low-interest loan program that targets consumers, businesses, and not for profit agencies,” Phillips said.

There are eight different types of Opportunity Illinois loans.

“The point of these loans is to improve the quality of life,” Phillips said. “With storm victims we want to help them get their lives back on track as soon as possible after a storm.”

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