Schenectady's Mayor has been working to encourage home ownership in the city. And this weekend he helped highlight a recently created rehab program for foreclosed properties at a home expo inside City Hall. Our Beth Croughan has more.

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SCHENECTADY, N.Y. -- Schenectady Architect Frank Gilmore transformed the look of 14 Myers Alley with the flip of a piece of tracing paper. "Whatever happened. It's still there, but it's sort of beat up," he said. "We're suggesting that the garage become a garden apartment, with it's own private fenced in garden," Gilmore explained of his rendering.

His firm has teamed up with Legere Restorations to help transform recently foreclosed homes in the City of Schenectady.

"How to take a home in whatever state that it's in and provide some type of protocol, and or a flavor, a taste," said General Manager Tom Petricca.

It's part of the recently created H.O.M.E.S. Program, which stands for Home Ownership Made Easy in Schenectady.

"Our neighborhoods didn't decline overnight. This is really a 5 or 10-year plan, that you just have to keep working at it and deal with individual properties, one at a time," said Schenectady Mayor Gary McCarthy.

Gilmore and Petricca are tasked with developing designs and ideas that the city can show contractors, who will then bid on the work and help find a buyer.

"What we're trying to do is basically on the front side, explain to bank, to the homeowner and whoever prospective buyer there is, the concept of costs," said Petricca.

But the costs, Mayor McCarthy said of owning a home in his city are cheaper when compared to others in the Capital Region. And putting properties back on the tax rolls he has said will help lower tax rates, for everyone.