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Montgomery County is going to partner with Habitat for Humanity to purchase foreclosed homes in the Glenmont area of Silver Spring and renovate them for low-income residents.

The initiative was announced Friday morning during an affordable housing benefit breakfast at the Marriott Hotel in Bethesda. It served as a fundraiser for the $3.5 million project, said Rick Nelson, the director of the county's Department of Housing and Community Affairs.

The county will buy about 10 foreclosed homes in Glenmont, one of the areas Nelson said was hardest hit by foreclosures.

The cost of the homes will average about $350,000, Nelson said. Once the county buys them, they will be renovated with environmentally friendly techniques and appliances and then given to a qualified Habitat homeowner. Potential homeowners must have a demonstrated need, or have at least 30 percent of their income devoted to rent, be willing to partner with Habitat to build the house and have to be able to pay a mortgage.

John Paukstis, the executive director for Habitat for Humanity of Montgomery County, said the county's help will allow the organization to purchase more expensive homes than Habitat could afford on its own.

"We just don't have the cash," Paukstis said. The project has an added benefit of raising home values in neighborhoods that have suffered from foreclosures, he said.

But the county has its own money problems, said County Executive Isiah Leggett, citing a projected $250 million budget deficit for this year.

"We are struggling," he said at Friday's breakfast.

Still, Leggett said, he has been determined to find ways to quadruple housing aid since he was elected in 2006. Next year, he said, he plans to allocate roughly $80 million for affordable housing, up from $54 million this fiscal year and with an ultimate goal of more than $100 million. The money is a combination of local bonds and general funds from the county, Nelson said. Any federal housing aid the state gets is in addition to that number.

About $3 million of the housing fund will go to Habitat for Humanity to purchase the foreclosed homes. Nelson said the county's partnership with Habitat for Humanity is important because there are more than 20,000 families on the waiting list for affordable housing.

"We do have a huge demand for affordable units," he said.

The high cost of homes makes affording one nearly impossible for the "average person who is hard working," he said.

The average income in the county is about $96,000 and the average cost of a single-family home is about $485,000, according to data from Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission taken from 2007, the most recent year data was available. Habitat for Humanity helps people who earn 30 to 50 percent of the county's average income. According to M-NCPPC, that is about 23 percent of the county.

In addition to the Glenmont project, Habitat for Humanity of Montgomery County, a separate entity from Habitat for Humanity International, is working in several other areas of the county.

Construction on 24 townhouses in Burtonsville is almost complete and a feasibility study is being conducted in Gaithersburg for mixed-use homes.

Paukstis stressed Habitat does not hand someone a free home. Instead, the nonprofit helps owners finance loans, zero interest long-term mortgages and property taxes — all for about $780 a month, he said.

The homeowners often make a lifelong commitment to Habitat for Humanity, he said. For example, the Ruiz family, an immigrant family from Guatemala who received a home 10 years ago in Wheaton, has been volunteering to build houses ever since.

Their daughter, Wendy Gabriela Ruiz, spoke at the breakfast about what it was like to move from a cramped, two-bedroom apartment holding nine people into a real home her family owned.

"It touched us," she said. "Really, like, right in the center."