NATCHEZ — Nita Delancy says she used to sit up all night, watching the rain pour through her kitchen ceiling.

Now, thanks to a Special Needs Assistance Grant, the 71-year-old sleeps through the storms.

Delancy, who lives alone, struggled for two years with the leak in her roof, and knew every night with a hard rain would be a sleepless night full of overflowing buckets on her kitchen floor.

In March, Delancy was the recipient of a SNAP grant, a program through which the City of Natchez, Home Bank and Concordia Bank secure funding for home improvement projects for elderly or disabled residents with qualifying incomes.

Natchez Community Development Director James Johnston said the projects are exclusively for fixing health and safety hazards in the housing of qualified applicants.

The grants are sourced through the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas, and are applied for by local member banks Home Bank (formerly Britton and Koontz) and Concordia Bank and Trust.

“We’re just intermediary — facilitating, that’s all we’re doing,” Johnston said. “We usually have more interest than we can apply for.”

Johnston said the city has been accepting worksheets from interested applicants for every SNAP grant cycle since January 2013.

Some years have had annual cycles and some had biannual, depending on funding availability, Johnston said.

“Over six cycles, we have had 83 funded applications, which have invested $396,522 total in the community,” Johnston said.

This year had only one funding cycle, Johnston said. Worksheets will be available for the January 2017 cycle in the planning office on the second floor of Natchez City Hall on Pearl Street starting Oct. 1. Worksheets are accepted on a first-come, first-reviewed basis.

To qualify, hopeful recipients must own their house, be at least 55 years old or have one person in the house who is disabled. The maximum allowable income depends on the size of the household.

The most common problem corrected by the grants is a leaking roof, Johnston said, but electrical or plumbing work is also very common.

“It’s good for local community, and it’s good community reinvestment,” he said. “It’s good for banks as well — giving back to community and not costing them anything but time.”

Natchez resident Susan Marvel, 67, had her roof replaced entirely.

“I can’t remember how many years (since) it had started leaking on the inside of my house,” Marvel said. “My ceiling started falling out.”

She said she would not have been able to afford the repairs if not for the program.

“I just love it, and I hope they keep the program going because there’s a lot of people not able to get the work done,” Marvel said.

Delancy said the grant-funded roof repair was a blessing.

“After it was done, that first big, hard rain, I got up and ran in there, and I said, ‘Oh, you old crazy woman, it’s not leaking anymore.’ I just sat at the table and laughed,” Delancy said. “Then I went back to bed.”