0:04
When I think about how the affordable housing programs really work
0:06
and their intention, it’s all about economic mobility.
0:09
Allowing someone to own their own home, sets them up for success because they have an opportunity to leverage their home to do a lot of different things.
0:17|
The word home for me means a lot like where you live and where you can have a stability that you're not worry about future. We moved here 12 years ago from Cairo, Egypt, and we had to rent for the past 12 years, and this a long time.
:18
It's well documented that the biggest barrier to homeownership is saving for a down payment. If you're paying high rent every month, and you're paying childcare, and you know healthcare, you know there's not a lot leftover to save to buy a home.
:32
Higher rates, higher mortgage payments and higher price points have disproportionately affected many of the communities we look to serve with these grants, but we've chosen to partner with the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston because it allows us to better serve communities especially those who could use an additional boost when it comes to down payment assistance and making home ownership as affordable as possible
:57
But the Bank provides three different kinds of down payment assistance programs, and each one of those programs targets a specific demographic. Equity Builder Program is targeting a demographic with lower income. Housing our Workforce is targeting you know what we call middle incomes, and then we have a special purpose credit program, Lift Up Homeownership that is helping to close the racial home ownership gap for people of color.
1:22
Having these programs really can make or break whether somebody can buy their home, and it gives them that leverage to be able to get an accepted offer.
1:33
So we spent two years to look for a home. We need support from getting the kind of grant or something can help us and can have us get some more stability for paying the down payment. Sean, he was working with SalemFive Bank. He mentioned the Equity Builder Program, and we were able to collect all the information they asked us for and the moment when Sean like give me a call and he said this program give you a grant. And we were so happy.
2:07
We bought this house!
2:16
We're a Bank, and we provide liquidity and funding and there's regulations but at the end of all of this there's a beneficiary. There's a person, and that person's life is probably made better through one of our programs.
2:29
It's future for us, for our children and now we build equity, and we own it. And it is perfect time and it's amazing moment.