Making Home Ownership a Reality for People of Color

By Journalist Dr. Ms. Jones

NEWBURGH – NACA, The Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, is a non-profit homeownership and community advocacy organization. They are HUD’s largest housing counseling agency, providing over 30% of all housing counseling in America. Their goal is to make the dream of owning a home a reality. On August 16-18th NACA brought their Achieve the Dream Event to NFA North. Over 1,000 potential homeowners attended. This free three-day event was from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. each day and included pre-purchase counseling workshops, financial document upload, personal counseling, underwriting, post qualification workshops, and other assistance for those desiring the “American Dream.”

“After they do counseling, comprehensive counseling, if they’re submitted for qualification, they come and see my team over here, the underwriting team… We give them their approvals right here. If not, we give them an action plan to where they can qualify within three to six months. We tell them exactly what they need to do. It could be anything. It could be a matter of pay your taxes for 2023… We need a letter from your landlord because you’re not paying your rent… where we can track it. So, we need to get a verification of rent, verify that you’ve been paying your rent on time… Your student loans are in deferment, but we don’t know what the payment is, because it’s showing zero… So, we need to get the student loan documentation. Something as simple as that,” said Newburgh’s Own Credit Risk Manager Dante Jackson who organized the event. “If they get approved, we send them to our purchase meeting… They teach them how to find [a house]. They tell them what they’re qualified for. They teach them how to find a realtor and how to do the house search.”

90% of NACA’s clients are people of color. They have transformed mortgage lending by offering no down payment or closing costs, no mortgage insurance or fees, and a below market fixed rate. It is a character-based model that doesn’t even consider credit score which breaks down barriers that have resulted in historically dismal homeownership rates for people of color.

“Bank of America is our lending partner. So, they’ve committed over $30 billion to the program… We look at how [people] paid their creditors for the last 12 to 24 months, and then we look at your rent as the baseline of what you can afford for a mortgage. So, if you can pay your rent without adding credit card debt, without taking out loans, without going into debt and paying it on time, then you can afford that same payment as a mortgage,” said Jackson. “NACA partnered with [Bank of America] and said, ‘Hey, we want these terms for our members.’ And over the last 40 years, even when the crisis happened, our foreclosure rate right now is less than 1%. So, it’s like .0001%. That means no foreclosures because we make sure that when we underwrite our files that they’re tight to where we know what they can afford.”

100 people qualified during the Achieve the Dream Event and are out shopping for new homes! Salena Moorer was one of those people and is looking to buy her house by her birthday in December.

“I have friends who went through the process. They’re always talking about it online on social media… I got here at eight o’clock this morning. My friend drove me up an hour and a half from LaGuardia,” said Moorer who is a registered nurse from Brooklyn, but lives in Atlanta and flew up just to attend. “I’ve been previously approved for home loans, the conventional way… But of course, there’s the down payment process, and sometimes those monies can be really expensive. NACA allows you no down payment. As long as you qualify, you get no down payment. You get one of the best interest rates on the market… I didn’t want to have to withdraw from my savings to buy a house… pull from my 401K… other investment accounts. So, I decided to try to go this route to try to save some money. [I’ll be saving] about $23,000. And that down payment plus closing costs with the interest rates being the way they are, that’s what the average person is looking at to buy.”

Moorer was approved by LaTonya Patrick who is Mortgage Specialist for NACA. She loves helping people become homeowners at live events.

“[My favorite part is] the hand claps, the smiling faces… [Also] Section Eight… using their vouchers… because they’re getting a home which they probably would have never thought they could purchase, especially if they have kids. To me, that’s everything, because they’re actually able to purchase a home… We have some people out here that struggle that’s barely making it, and they found they’re paying more in rent, than a mortgage. Those are happy times. It’s emotional,” said Patrick.

NACA offers programs like HOTPHA which stands for Home Ownership Through Public Housing Assistance as well as an HBCU Program for faculty, staff, and alumni. NACA also has a Home Save Program, helping people save their house through affordable mortgage payments. Newburgh’s Own Brian Rodriguez became a Mortgage Counselor with NACA after NACA saved his mom’s house.

“I found NACA when my mom passed away… me and my brother were gonna do it together, but I wasn’t eligible because I own property… My brother was able to close, so he closed with a 3.3% [rate]. The house is still in the family today. He lives there today because NACA helped save the house because of the rates [and] no closing costs. He was just fresh out of school… and now he has a daughter, a baby girl, that’s one year old… To see her living in the house, it’s all worthwhile,” said Rodriguez. “When I heard they were coming here, I wasn’t even on the roster. I was like, ‘I have to go home.’ I love Newburgh.”

NACA consists of 3.8 million members and membership is only $25 annually. Angie Thibodeaux, the National Director, helps keep them engaged and motivated.

“A lot of our services are free, and they’re free, because a lot of the work and the backbone of the work comes from just straight volunteerism… This year, we’re making sure that all of our members get motivated, activated, and exercise their right to vote, because being voter registered is a requirement and going to the polls to vote is a requirement of NACA… So, we want our people who are about to become homeowners to understand… the reason why you vote is to have a sounding board and have a say in the issues that plague your neighborhood. It all ends and begins under the rooftop, and how do you increase or activate your authority in your community is by voting,” said Thibodeaux.

For more information, please visit www.naca.com.

Journalist Ms. Jones