Reports and Studies

Cedar Road is a 40-unit mixed income, mixed-race property in Vista, California. Vista is a fast growing city 35 miles north of San Diego. Its population grew 29 percent between 1990 and 2003 and almost all of that growth has been in the Hispanic population that now represents 41 percent of the city's population.

Cedar Road is divided between very-low (30 percent) and low-income (70 percent) households. Most of the very low-income households are part of a transitional housing program for homeless families that uses 10 of the 40 units.

Cedar Road was completed in 1996 as the first phase of a two-phase project. The second phase, Nettleton Road, contains 28 units and was completed in 1999. Although this study is about Cedar Road, the two phases are operated as one property and together encircle a central courtyard. The properties are located in a modest residential neighborhood of small single-family homes and conventional apartment complexes that are in fair condition. It is directly across from one of the best elementary schools in the City and is close to a busy thoroughfare of strip malls. It is the most attractive complex in the area. Complete listing and access info »

Montevista was built in 1998 and is a 306-unit mixed-income, mixed-race property in Milpitas, California. Milpitas is a small city outside San Jose that boomed along with the rest of Silicon Valley in the 1990s and then cooled off in the early 2000s. It remains a relatively prosperous, low crime, and low unemployment city.

Montevista contains a nearly even mix of affordable tax credit and market-rate units. The residents are economically diverse with household incomes that range from below $10,000 to over $200,000. The residents are also racially diverse with substantial shares of Asians, Hispanics, and whites. Complete listing and access info »

Parkview Terrace was built in 1998 and is a 92-unit mixed-income, mixed-race property in Poway, California. Poway has grown in just 30 years from a rural farming community with a trailer park image to a very desirable community of multi-million dollar homes with a renowned public school system. It is just 15 miles northeast of San Diego.

Although Parkview Terrace's initial tenant eligibility is capped at 50 percent of AMI, long resident tenure -- spurred by an exploding real estate market and plentiful employment -- finds 43 percent of households now at or above 60 percent of AMI. The immediate neighborhood, one of the lower income ones in the city, offers an extraordinary mix of modest residential, retail, municipal, recreational and educational opportunities, all within a few blocks. Complete listing and access info »

Peters Colony is a 160-unit mixed-income, mixed-race development located in Carrollton, Texas, a relatively prosperous suburb north of Dallas. The property is nearly evenly split between households with income (1) less than 30 percent of the family-sized adjusted area median income (AMI), (2) households between 30 and 50 percent of AMI, and (3) households between 50 and 80 percent of AMI. One-third of the units have no income limits, but the owner voluntarily limits occupancy to households with income below 80 percent of the median at initial occupancy. The property was purchased and modestly rehabbed by Foundation Communities in 1995. Complete listing and access info »

Spanish Oaks is a late 1960s garden apartment development in the Arlington section of Jacksonville, Florida. Originally built as market-rate rental housing, Spanish Oaks entered the inventory of the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) after the original owner defaulted. It was sold in 1995 to a partnership of two local non-profits -- Jacksonville Housing Partnership and Families First -- under the RTC's Affordable Housing Program. The development has 194 units with between one and three bedrooms. The agreement with the RTC was that 20 percent of the units (40 units) would be reserved for households with incomes at or below 50 percent of area median, another 55 percent (107 units) could have occupants with incomes up to 80 percent of area median, and a quarter (47 units) could be rented to households at any income level at unrestricted, market rents. The actual income levels of the households in 2005 are more heavily weighted towards the low end: half the units are occupied by households with incomes below 50 percent of median including 38 percent that have incomes below 30 percent of median. Complete listing and access info »

Nonprofit organizations seeking to provide affordable housing in their communities need access to capital to pay operating costs, provide down-payment and closing-cost assistance, capitalize revolving loan funds, and develop rental housing. They also need to build and strengthen their capacity to offer programming, to train new staff as old ones leave, and to learn new strategies for creating and maintaining affordable housing.

The HFA community is also seeking partners who can assist them in meeting a similar mission but have both local expertise and a national presence to share experience and support. They are also looking for partners with a good track record in both production and impact. The NeighborWorks network is uniguely situated to provide that in many states.

This paper highlights a variety of ways that NeighborWorks organizations and state housing finance agencies (HFAs) are partnering to provide financial and technical assistance to affordable housing efforts. Complete listing and access info »

Edited proceedings of the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation Symposium, NeighborWorks Training Institute, April 18, 2001, Chicago. Hosted by the NeighborWorks Multifamily Initiative.

The five papers that follow were written by five lead presenters at the symposium and distributed in advance to symposium participants to provide a framework for each panel discussion. Reports of the panel discussions are also provided, which includes many valuable insights offered by audience members as well as panelists. Complete listing and access info »

Based on recommendations from a group of NeighborWorks organization (NWO) directors, Neighborhood Reinvestment initiated the Campaign for Home Ownership in 1993. That campaign provided NWOs with both funding and technical assistance to expand homeownership opportunities in the communities they serve. Based on the experiences of organizations involved with that campaign, Neighborhood Reinvestment staff distilled a model homeownership assistance strategy they call Full-Cycle Lending. This model includes six components: partnership building, pre-purchase home-buyer education, flexible loan products, property services, post-purchase counseling and neighborhood impact. Based on the success of this first five-year Campaign, Neighborhood Reinvestment supported a second five-year campaign called the Campaign for Home Ownership 2002.

In 1998 Congress authorized $25 million for a NeighborWorks Home Ownership Pilot program designed to leverage additional local support and test new strategies for assisting first-time home buyers. In less than four months, the Neighborhood Reinvestment Home Ownership Campaign staff developed and implemented specific program guidelines for the distribution of funds to local NWOs. These guidelines allowed NWOs great flexibility in the use of Pilot funds including using the funds for upgrading computers, hiring staff, developing marketing plans and programs, capitalizing loan funds, providing down payment assistance as well as other uses.

Campaign staff developed guidelines for three funding categories, A, B, and C, designed to respond to the different needs of NWOs. Category A grants (up to $500,000) were to assist NWOs that were already assisting 30 or more home buyers a year increase the number of home buyers assisted. Category B grants (up to $500,000) were to assist NWOs that were already assisting a large number of new home buyers enhance the positive impacts of home ownership on their target areas by undertaking other neighborhood improvement activities as well as increasing the number of home buyers assisted. Category C grants (up to $50,000) were to assist NWOs that were assisting a relatively low number of new home buyers build their capacities to do so. A total of 35 Category A grants were made, nine Category B grants and 40 Category C grants.

To assist Campaign and Pilot sites in achieving their goals, Neighborhood Reinvestment provides several types of technical assistance. The semi-annual Neighborhood Reinvestment Training Institute offers a variety of courses on developing homeownership promotion programs and home-owner education methods. Neighborhood Reinvestment has also developed an extensive array of marketing materials that can be used by Campaign and Pilot organizations. Finally, Neighborhood Reinvestment Campaign and field staff assist participating organizations with special challenges as they arise.

This report is the second of three reports evaluating the outcomes, implementation process and impacts of the Pilot. The outcome evaluation was designed to document the results of the Pilot including the number of persons trained and/or counseled, the number of new home owners assisted, and the value of housing units purchased, built or rehabilitated with the assistance of the Pilot organizations. This evaluation is based on information provided to Neighborhood Reinvestment by participating NWOs. The process evaluation was designed to document and evaluate the efforts of Neighborhood Reinvestment and participating NWOs in planning and implementing the Pilot programs. This part of the evaluation is based on interviews conducted in two rounds of site visits to eight Category A and B Pilot programs -- once in the fall of 1999 and once in the spring and summer of 2001. Finally, the impact evaluation was designed to assess the influence of the Pilot on the participating NWOs and their clients. The evaluation is based on interviews with NWO staff and focus groups of new home owners assisted in the eight sites visited. Complete listing and access info »

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI), in partnership with NeighborWorks America, conducted a series of focus groups to gather information from Latino-serving institutions nationwide about best practices to prevent Latino foreclosure. The principal objective of this project was to identify the causes of foreclosure among Latinos and to present potential proactive solutions to the problem. Special emphasis was placed on identifying specific lending products and underwriting guidelines that best meet the needs of Latino borrowers.




Focus group participants consistently expressed the need for flexible loan underwriting and products to meet the unique needs of the Latino community, such as nonstandard means for determining income, alternative credit use, down-payment assistance and verified cash income.




The tightening of credit in response to increased foreclosures threatens the availability of loan products that are particularly useful to Latino borrowers.




The abuse of flexible products, not the products themselves, was cited by participants as the cause of problems. Abusive practices mentioned included overstating income to qualify for a home rather than verifying undocumented earned income or placing borrowers in products whose future payments they cannot afford.




Among other circumstances, the unique needs of Latino borrowers are caused by cultural factors. Latino communities depend on social networks and referrals to gain information and often identify real estate agents as their first point of contact and trusted advisor for all matters relating to homeownership. The reliance in Latino communities on informal networks makes them more vulnerable to unethical and predatory behavior, and oftentimes means that the client does not get adequate or appropriate assistance. Trained housing counseling professionals can objectively meet the needs of the Latino borrower.




To ensure that the needs of Latino clients are met and the integrity of the homebuying industry is upheld, collaborative solutions to foreclosure must be sought. Partnership among housing counseling agencies and real estate agents, mortgage brokers and lenders is essential to support sustainable homeownership in Latino communities.




Recommendations:




- Lenders should be encouraged to continue the use of flexible underwriting methods coupled with homeownership education provided by a trained professional.




- Leaders in the Latino housing community should facilitate communication between real estate professionals and housing counseling organizations to discuss how counseling can help homebuyers obtain and maintain homeownership.




- The development of a system that allows professionals and consumers to anonymously report unethical acts is necessary to protect consumers.
Complete listing and access info »

This paper addresses a two-fold problem. First, some families are struggling to sustain their home ownership, yet market responses are inadequate. Second, postpurchase education and counseling, potential tools to assist vulnerable homeowners, are inadequately provided. This paper presents a conceptual framework for the effect of postpurchase education and counseling in assisting homeowners. It then examines information needs and strategies that can drive the provision of postpurchase services. In particular, the analysis assesses the current effectiveness and implementation of postpurchase programs. It also draws implications from prepurchase counseling and private sector loss mitigation. Finally, current stakeholders in home-ownership outcomes are identified. This paper recommends postpurchase education and counseling that are integrated into the lending models of the financial services industry and comprehensive over the timeline of the mortgage. A series of models ranging in scope are suggested, including potential actors and challenges involved. Complete listing and access info »