The Chattanooga Housing Authority will use $6.3 million in federal stimulus funds for a variety of projects.
Naveed A. Minhas, vice president of development, said, "From our perspective it will create a lot of construction jobs in a short time frame.
"We at CHA have already been able to save five full time jobs by creating a Force Account team who has started upgrading our vacant units to allow more people to become our residents. We have a list of projects which are 'shovel ready' and we are aggressively going out for bids to get the projects started.
"We hope to have most of the grant obligated within 120 days, as stipulated in the guidelines from HUD."
Officials said the $6,351,256 is the local housing authority's share of $4 billion in HUD capital stimulus money.
Priority is to be given to projects that can be started and carried out quickly, to rehabbing vacant units and to projects that are already underway or are in five-year plans.
CHA must spend all the funds by March 8, 2012.