The state, acting by and in the discretion of the Commissioner of Housing, may enter into a contract with a community housing development corporation, a municipal developer or a nonprofit corporation providing emergency shelter services for homeless persons for state financial assistance in the form of a state grant-in-aid, loan, deferred loan, loan guarantee or interest subsidy for the cost of acquisition, construction, rehabilitation or renovation of emergency shelters or rooming houses for homeless persons or for the cost of acquisition of mobile manufactured homes for use as transitional housing. In the case of a deferred loan, the contract shall require that payments on interest are due immediately but that payments on principal may be made at a later time.