The city of Rochester is announcing a new affordable housing initiative tackling two problems: housing and vacant homes.

It's called Neighbors for Neighbors.

The program focuses on the zombie homes in the city.  Cynthia Silver now owns one of these homes, on Madison Street, thanks to the initiative.  She'll be able to renovate and rent it out affordably.

It had been vacant for well over a decade. The city says currently there are about 2100 vacant homes, 1300 of those have been vacant for more than a year.

“To provide for this neighborhood and this community to put these houses back to the way they used to be and be quality homes for people, just you know it’s the best,” she said.

“Part of this program is to really find neighbors in a community that want to invest, and be able purchase a home, be able to renovate the home and rent it out to a family at an affordable rate,” said Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren.

The program is administered through the Rochester Land Bank Corporation and is funded by a state grant.