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By Shira Bergman
Teresa Ettouzar thought she had done everything right. A single
mother with two small children, she returned to school to earn a
degree and found a full-time job as a dental hygienist in Barre,
Vermont.
But just as she was preparing to start her new job, the lease on
her apartment terminated and she found herself frantically searching
for a home for her family. Although she had a good credit history
and the guarantee of a full-time job, Ms. Ettouzar was unable to
find an apartment. "In such a tight housing market, a single
mother and two kids are the last people a landlord wants to take
in," she says.
After unsuccessful phone calls to over 30 landlords, Ms. Ettouzar
was forced to move into a homeless shelter in Burlington. She managed
to postpone starting her new job in order to spend more time searching
for an apartment close to her office, but she eventually had no
choice but to begin the long commute to work.
Between driving six-year-old Sarah to school, dropping off four-year-old
Nathan at daycare, and working full-time, Ms. Ettouzar did not have
the time to actively search for an apartment. Shelter life was also
taking its toll on her children. Her once mild-mannered son began
exhibiting aggressive tendencies, says Ms. Ettouzar, and she was
desperate for a solution.
Four months after her arrival at the shelter, the solution came
during a call to the Vermont Housing Authority. Ms. Ettouzar had
contacted the agency to request help with finding an apartment in
the Barre area, but she was instead recommended for a home-buyer
program. Soon after her call to the agency, Ms. Ettouzar enrolled
in a home-buyer counseling class through the Central Vermont Land
Trust's NeighborWorks Homeownership Center.
To help cover down-payment costs for the purchase of a home, member
Community National Bank in Derby, Vermont, used $10,000 in funding
from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston's new Equity Builder Program
(EBP). The Central Vermont Community Land Trust (CVCLT) provided
an additional $19,000 grant to support the purchase. "Within
six weeks of finding the house I wanted, I was able to close,"
says Ms. Ettouzar.
The EBP provides very low- to moderate-income home buyers with up
to $15,000 in grants to cover down-payment, closing-cost, home-buyer
counseling, and rehabilitation assistance. Member banks apply for
a minimum of $50,000 in EBP funds and a maximum based on the money
available ($1.5 million in EBP funds was available in 2004).
The recipient of over $150,000 in EBP grants since the program's
inception last year, Community National Bank helped six families
purchase new homes in 2003. A key to the bank's successful use of
the program has been its partnership with the CVCLT.
"The EBP grants coupled with other grants and low- to zero-interest
loans from CVCLT brings the monthly cost of housing for moderate-income
folks more in line with what they can pay," says Lee Youngman,
mortgage originator at Community National Bank. "We live in
a very low-wage state with an aging, expensive housing stock. EBP
allows folks to buy their homes without down payments and use whatever
assets they have for capital improvements or needed repairs."
Ms. Ettouzar confides that she initially had reservations about
buying her own home. Being a single mother and working full-time
was enough of a challenge without the added responsibility of maintaining
her own home.
She has found, however, that the rewards of homeownership outweigh
the challenges. Within two weeks of moving into their new home,
Nathan's aggressive behavior had stopped. Her two children now have
their own bedrooms and a big yard to play in. "It's the perfect
house," says Ms. Ettouzar. "It's just what we needed."
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