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Until Tuesday, Shadana Myers and her husband, Damon, lived in an apartment in Bowie. But that evening, the couple backed a truck into a driveway in front of a house on Reverend Davis Drive in Upper Marlboro and started moving into the foreclosed home they bought under a new federally funded program run by Prince George's County.

"It's exciting," Myers said. "It's a new beginning, a whole new life that we never had before. We'll actually be in a community."

The Myers received more than $18,000 for their down payment under the county's new Down Payment On Your Dream program, a federally funded initiative that offers up to $20,000 for first-time homebuyers who want to buy foreclosed homes in parts of the county hit hard by the housing crisis. They bought the second house purchased under the program.

The program targets a large swath of southern Prince George's near Upper Marlboro, Fort Washington, District Heights, and Capitol Heights; parts of central county near Cheverly and New Carrollton; an area along the Washington, D.C., border near Hyattsville and parts of northern Prince George's south of Laurel.

Myers said the couple has been thinking about buying a house for about a year now, and said they looked at more than 20 foreclosed homes that were part of the new program. She said it could be strange moving into a house that someone else was forced to abandon.

In some houses, "you can see that people were angry, because you could see holes in the wall," she said. "You could see children's toys left on the floor… So it could be upsetting, if you take the time to think about it."

But with the exception of some chips in the doorframe and a broken padlock on the front door, their new house seemed to be in good condition. The Myers paid $260,000 for the home, which cost $349,000 in December 2008, according to state property records.

Rosalyn Clemens, the manager of the county's Neighborhood Stabilization Program, said the county expects to settle people into seven homes by the end of this week under the program, which is largely funded by a $10.8 million grant from the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program approved by the U.S. Congress last summer. Prince George's hopes to move people into 700 foreclosed houses using the funds, she said.

The county program accepts first-time homebuyers who make less than 120 percent of the county's median household income, which works out to $98,000 for a family of two and higher amounts for larger families. In 33 target ZIP codes, including those for Upper Marlboro, buyers can receive 7 percent of the house's value in down payment assistance or $20,000, whichever amount is lower. People buying homes in other ZIP codes can receive up to $15,000 or 3.5 percent of a house's value.

Participants who move out of the house within four years have to repay the entire amount, interest-free. Participants who stay longer have to pay back lower amounts, and those who stay for 10 years do not have to repay any money.

Three out of the first eight homes sold under the program were in Upper Marlboro, which had the county's second-highest number of foreclosures in July. There are currently 590 foreclosed houses in the Upper Marlboro area and nearly 5,000 foreclosed houses in Prince George's, according to RealtyTrac.

But the Upper Marlboro area will apparently not receive funding under a second round of federal grants. Clemens said that, while the first set of grants was based solely on an area's foreclosure activity, local and regional governments will have to convince the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that areas applying for the second round of loans meet other criteria, including proximity to transportation and employment centers.

The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, which is coordinating the requests of Washington-area counties for the second round of funds, did not include Upper Marlboro on a list of 16 areas to receive the money, according to Alicia Lewis, a housing planner for the council.

The council is requesting nearly $12 million to be focused on areas near MARC and Metro lines and employment centers such as the University of Maryland, College Park; Andrews Air Force Base; and the U.S. Census Bureau, according to its application for funding.

The application asks for nearly $1.2 million for Bowie and additional funds for Accokeek, Camp Springs, Capitol Heights, College Park, Coral Hills, East Riverdale, Forestville, Glenn Dale, Lake Arbor, Lanham, Seabrook, Laurel, Mitchellville, Oxon Hill, Riverdale Park, Suitland and Temple Hills.

HUD will make a decision about funding requests in December, Clemens said.

E-mail Greg Holzheimer at gholzheimer@gazette.net.