By
Robert O'Malley
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| View of
Carmen Gioza's townhouse in Billerica. |
Before she moved into her new townhouse in Billerica, Massachusetts,
Carmen Giosa and her three children had been living in public housing
in nearby Stoneham. Recently divorced after more than 10 years of
marriage, Ms. Giosa moved from East Boston to Stoneham to start a
new life for her and her children.
“It was a very difficult time for me, but I promised myself that
I didn’t want to be there for the rest of my life,” she says. “I
wanted something better for my kids.”
A customer-service representative for the Social Security Administration
in Boston, Ms. Giosa began researching programs that could help her
buy a home for her family. She attended a meeting at Stoneham Public
Housing to learn about the Individual Development Account (IDA) program,
a special savings account that earns matching funds for every dollar
saved up to $2,000.
Ms. Giosa was accepted into the program, which is a joint undertaking
by the nonprofit Community Service Network (CSN) and member StonehamBank.
CSN provides matching funds while StonehamBank provides a savings
account unencumbered by fees and minimum-balance requirements.
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| The Giosa family and David Arsenault in front of the family’s new townhouse in Billerica. |
As part of the IDA program, Ms. Giosa was required to attend financial
literacy classes offered by StonehamBank. At one of her classes she
met David Arsenault, assistant vice president/compliance and CRA
officer at StonehamBank, who told her more about programs for low-income
home buyers.
“StonehamBank has been the big helper in the whole process because
they educated me and made available to me information on these existing
programs,” says
Ms. Giosa.
One of the programs Mr. Arsenault told her about was the Federal
Home Loan Bank of Boston’s (the Bank) Equity Builder Program
(EBP), which provides up to $15,000 toward the down-payment on a
house to eligible first-time home buyers.
Member banks can apply for up to $100,000 in EBP funding to help
income-eligible households with down-payment, closing-cost, home-buyer
counseling, and rehabilitation assistance. Members can also use EBP
grants to match eligible buyers’ savings under an IDA-type
program.
In addition to the EBP, Mr. Arsenault told Ms. Giosa about a matching
grant program available through Merrimack Valley Housing that could
provide her with an additional $10,000 toward the down payment on
a house. Accessing the assistance available through the various first-time
home-buyer programs, Mr. Arsenault was hopeful that StonehamBank
could help Ms. Giosa purchase her first home.
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| View of Carmen Giosa’s townhouse in the Villages at Pinehurst development in Billerica. |
Mr. Arsenault has been eager to tap the EBP to help low-income residents
purchase a home, but says housing prices in the area are so high
that it has been difficult to find them affordable mortgages.
In April 2005, Ms. Giosa found a house she could afford in Stoneham
but it failed to pass an inspection and she was back where she started. “She
was so happy when her offer was accepted,” says Mr. Arsenault. “I
remember her coming into the bank to make the final application.
When I went out to see her she gave me a big hug.”
But Ms. Giosa didn’t let the setback stop her. Not long after
her first effort to purchase a house failed, Jamie Simpson, a loan
officer at StonehamBank, told her she was eligible to enter a lottery
for affordable units in two new Chapter 40B developments.
Unsure what to expect from the lottery, Ms. Giosa took a chance and
entered. She was startled by the result: in September 2005, she was
selected to purchase one of 15 affordable ownership units in the
new Villages at Pinehurst Chapter 40B development in Billerica.
To cover the cost of the down payment, Ms. Giosa used her IDA and
matching funds, a $10,000 grant from Merrimack Valley Housing, and
a $15,000 grant from the Bank’s EBP. Like many Chapter 40B
developments, the affordable component of the Villages at Pinehurst
was financed with the Bank’s discounted New England Fund financing.
“I knew when the first house fell through how devastated she was,” says
Mr. Arsenault. “But through her own perseverance and our watching
out for her, the 40B became available, she entered the lottery, and
by God’s
will, she was accepted. Now she has something brand new that is no
different from the property selling at $322,000.”
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| View of
the Villages at Pinehurst development in Billerica. |
In February, Ms. Giosa and her three children moved into their new
duplex townhouse, and her life hasn’t been the same since. “It
has been very wonderful for us,” she says. “If it wasn’t
for the state, the federal government, the Bank, and all these nonprofit
organizations I would never have been able to own this house and
be here.”
“I think the Chapter 40B law is the greatest gift,” says Ms. Giosa,
who emigrated to the U.S. from Guatemala in 1985 and became a U.S. citizen
in 1992. “There are a lot of people like me who work and want to buy
a home but can’t afford to buy one at the regular market price.”
“A house like this is assessed at $350,000, but through the 40B lottery
I was able to get it for $169,900,” she says. “I am so
grateful that this law exists and allows me to give my children a
better future. I want them to go to college. I want them to be good
citizens and give back to the country.”
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| Carmen
Gioza's youngest son at home. |
“I have never had anything as wonderful as this, honestly,” says
Ms. Giosa’s 16-year-old daughter Giovanna. “Our house in East Boston
was nice, but it was very confining, and the neighborhood wasn’t very
nice. We really love this neighborhood, and the house is very spacious. It’s
everything I could ever dream it to be.”
“We worked so hard to get her this house because we believed in her,” adds
Mr. Arsenault. “It was the EBP money that really put her in this house.
If it wasn’t for that money she wouldn’t be here.” T |
