Housing Bubble
Freddie Mac Commits $2 Million to expand minority home ownership
22 February 2003
Freddie Mac has committed $2 million to help the national NeighborWorks® network of nonprofit housing and community-revitalization organizations pioneer new ways to enable more minority and other underserved families overcome financial and cultural barriers to homeownership.
Announced today at Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation's Training Institute in Atlanta, the partnership marks the expansion of a 10-year alliance that already has helped more than 67,000 low- and moderate-income families become homeowners through the NeighborWorks® Campaign for Home Ownership. Freddie Mac's expanded five-year commitment also includes sponsorship of national symposia to address critical housing and community revitalization issues.
"Freddie Mac is proud to continue our work with the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation to strengthen communities through homeownership," said Leland C. Brendsel, Freddie Mac Chairman and CEO. "Freddie Mac's alliance with NRC underscores our mutual commitment to put more families on the path to homeownership and greater personal financial security."
Freddie Mac's support for NRC is a component of Catch the Dream, Freddie Mac's comprehensive plan to help achieve the Bush Administration's goal of adding 5.5 million minority homeowners by the end of the decade.
"Freddie Mac's support of the NeighborWorks network -- both through direct funding and creating flexible, affordable mortgage loan options -- is instrumental to the unprecedented success of the NeighborWorks Campaign for Home Ownership," said Ellen Lazar, executive director of Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation.
NRC plans to use Freddie Mac's new five-year grant to build additional NeighborWorks HomeOwnership Centers, while expanding the activities of more than 50 existing HomeOwnership Centers serving communities nationwide. The funding will also help expand the scope of the HUD Housing Choice Voucher program, which enables qualified renters to apply the equivalent of their Section 8 rental subsidies to mortgage payments.
Additionally, Freddie Mac will be a leading national sponsor of major symposia on housing and community development issues. The symposia will be conducted as part of Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation's Training Institute, which is held four times annually in locations around the country.
Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation, which founded and supports the national NeighborWorks® network, is a public nonprofit corporation chartered by Congress in 1978 to revitalize neighborhoods through increased homeownership, resident leadership, development of decent affordable rental housing, training and resident leadership. The NeighborWorks® network of more than 220 local organizations serve more than 2,300 urban, suburban and rural communities, and last year generated approximately $1.7 billion in local investments. More information on Neighborhood Reinvestment and the NeighborWorks system is available from their website.
Source: Freddie Mac
