Preem Cabey had wanted a house for years. But when she found the perfect home, a "fixer-upper" available through the Albany County Land Bank, she didn’t qualify for a loan that would cover the repairs. "I wasn’t working enough hours," says Cabey, who had been a director of a recreational facility while working as an artist and community advocate.
Now a police dispatcher, she could probably qualify for a traditional loan today. But she's glad she went the route she did, purchasing her home from the Albany County Land Bank with a loan from Home HeadQuarters.
Cabey tried four other financial institutions before she discovered Home HeadQuarters, a NeighborWorks network organization and Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), recognized for its innovative and equitable loan products.
Cabey's home is located a few buildings down from her former, rented apartment home. She and her family visit the property three times a week as it goes through renovations. Her son's school is across the street from the house and he saw their home each day before school ended in June, which is recognized as National Homeownership Month. The family hopes to move into their new home in July.
Cabey took a homebuying class and volunteered at homebuying events before she made her purchase in Albany County, which has one of the largest home ownership gaps between Blacks and whites in the country, according to the land bank. She did all of the right things, according to the staff at Home HeadQuarters. But she couldn’t get a traditional loan. That's where CDFIs come in.
"We step into the gap where banks can’t finance," says Karen Schroeder, chief communications officer for Home HeadQuarters. That includes land bank properties banks don’t always want to finance because the housing is vacant and often needs a great deal of repair.
Home HeadQuarters moved into the Albany area at the right time for Cabey, who considers the best
thing about her new home is that it belongs to her family. "It's our space," she says. "We wanted a home of our own."
Helping people attain homeownership
Latoya Allen, deputy director of Home HeadQuarters, shared that one of the nonprofit's goals is to move people from affordable housing to their own homes. "A lot of people, when they think of homeownership, they don’t think it’s for them," she says. "When I was younger, I didn't think it was possible for me to own a home. I thought I had to have my life together 100 percent. I thought I had to have a lot of money and the perfect credit score. There’s a lot I wasn’t aware of."
Home HeadQuarters is trying to make the homebuying process less complicated through housing education. Allen points out that a HUD-approved housing counselor will be with you every step of the way.
"A lot of the people we see coming in are people with low credit scores or who don't have a lot of money in savings," she says. "Some have never lived outside a rental. Some have never lived on their own. You're teaching people a whole different way of living from start to end."
Home HeadQuarters clients are often the first in their family to buy a home and therefore may not have a wealth of knowledge from friends and relatives to fall back on. Like other NeighborWorks organizations, Home HeadQuarters helps provide access to that knowledge. In 2020, during the height of the pandemic, the nonprofit saw 1,000 people sign up for homebuyer education classes, offered online.
According to NeighborWorks America’s newest Housing and Financial Capability Survey, released June 24, many individuals believe buying a home is complicated, which dissuades some of them from even trying. But the survey also shows that people are willing to seek help through programs like those NeighborWorks network organizations provide. In fact, more than half of Americans say they would be interested in taking classes targeted at improving their financial skills, an increase of six points over last year. General interest is especially high for young Americans.
A new home for the Cannons
Kelvin Cannon has wanted to own a home for more than 20 years. "When I got out of the Marine Corps, my credit was not the greatest," he says. “I was a single young man, trying to find my way. I went to banks. They said, 'You’ve got to have this. You've got to have that.'" But people spoke to him in generalities; they didn’t explain the terms or the steps.
Last year, married and with grown children, he decided to try again. A Realtor pointed him in the direction of Home HeadQuarters' Mortgage Origination Manager Tanya Leonard, who gave him valuable advice. “She said, 'I need you to do ABCDE and F, and I’ll do the rest of the letters.'"
Cannon’s credit was in better shape, but he and his wife were behind on medical bills. Leonard advised them to start paying those off, even if it was just a bit at a time, and to take care of petty debts. "The process wasn’t as difficult as I thought it was," Cannon says.
Cannon and his wife, Cynthia, just celebrated one year in a home of their own, which includes a room dedicated to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Cannon talks about his home as if he's Home HeadQuarters' official ambassador. "My payment is unreal. My house is unreal. My land is unreal. Truly, I’m grateful," he says. "I've got the opportunity to say, 'My home.' Home HeadQuarters came through for me like a hummer in the summer."
Cannon also received assistance with funding for improvements to his driveway, walkway and bathroom to make them easier to navigate, improvements he needed because he is legally blind. Home HeadQuarters, which was the No. 1 home improvement lender in the NeighborWorks network in 2020, helped there, too.
Since Cannon moved into his home a year ago, several of his friends have found Home HeadQuarters through his recommendations. He once called Leonard and put her on the phone with a coworker. That coworker closed on a home this year. "If not for them, where would I be?" Cannon says.
"He knows he can call at any time," says Leonard. "To see the joy in his face and hear it in his voice is unbelievable. … That’s why I'm here. To help people without the restrictions they would get from a traditional lender."
The role of CDFIs is getting national attention, especially this month. On June 15, Vice President Kamala Harris announced a $1.25 billion in federal relief funds for CDFIs. Of NeighborWorks' nearly 250 network organizations, 84 – about a third – are CDFIs.
In Syracuse, Home HeadQuarters received 102 applications in 2020 and closed 84 of them, for $7.9 million in loans. In 2021, they’ve received 32 applications so far and have closed 37 loans, a few of them holdovers from last year. Many loan recipients are people of color. "If you look at our classes, they are overwhelmingly African American women sitting in the classroom," says Allen. She shared that staff's relationship with clients makes a difference and puts people at ease about asking questions and receiving answers.
06/29/2021
