Brooklyn Jubilee’s newest partnership has just begun to sprout. We are now an affiliate of Habitat for Humanity in New York City.
Habitat for Humanity has built several affordable housing developments in NYC. These buildings present the opportunity of a life time that many of us only dream about – homeownership in NYC. Best of all, they present that opportunity to families who might otherwise never be able to buy because of their income.
In fact, although they have recently built a beautiful, LEED-certified condo complex in East New York, Habitat cannot find enough qualified applicants to purchase these apartments. Stop and digest that for a moment. In New York City, where 70% of the residents are tenants, many of whom dream of homeownership but can’t pull together a 20-30% down payment, these gorgeous homes are sitting vacant. Now consider that the down payment on the Habitat homes is only ONE PERCENT, and the fixed-rate 30-year mortgage is only TWO PERCENT. So why do these condos sit empty?
Not everyone qualifies for the program. The family income must be within their guidelines. The applicant must have a good credit score, at least 620 or up. They must be willing to put in hundreds of hours of “sweat equity,” meaning actual physical labor in the construction of other homes, before they can purchase their own.
So, Habitat can’t actually find enough qualified applicants to purchase the homes. Sometimes a good candidate is zooming along in the process, and they get caught in a credit scam, and their credit score goes bust. Sometimes people are working their way towards homeownership, and they lose their job and thus fall out side the income guidelines.
Here’s where we can help. Habitat wants to goes into the community to talk to people about their homeownership program, and encourage folks who might qualify to apply. And to foster a tenant population with higher credit scores, Habitat lectures in the community about consumer scams and other consumer traps that can ultimately ruin your credit score. They make these presentations when the can, but are always looking for more opportunities to speak to an audience. They don’t have enough resources to promote these events themselves to generate a good crowd, and many of the organization that might want to sponsor it won’t have those resources either.
Could you be the answer? Could you help Habitat? It’s not as complicated as it might seem. I’m pretty confident we could find the venues for at least five presentations right away, and schedule them. But Brooklyn Jubilee doesn’t have the staff to do extensive outreach for these events. It takes time, and with limited staff, we couldn’t do an effective job on our own. Volunteers could help out by spending time on-line finding names of churches, businesses, etc. that might promote a Habitat lecture. Other volunteers could help us mail letters to those groups, or give them a call, or take them a flier about the event.
No, it’s not as sexy as wielding a hammer for them. But it’s real help. Simple help. Help that Habitat wants and needs to effectively promote low-income home ownership. Do you share that vision? Can you get involved?
You’ve probably seen the commercials. Do your taxes now, and why wait for the refund when we’ll give you the money right now? Sounds good, right? In fact, the Refund Anticipation Loans, short-term high-interest loans (50%-500%) appeal to low-income taxpayers who could use the cash right away to pay bills. But these loans are risky gambles, and a lot of New Yorkers will lose that gamble this year.