After yesterday’s report about the trickle of federal recovery aid being used to assist mortgage holders on the brink of foreclosure, we can return to the topic of the housing crisis with some much better news. NeighborWorks America has announced that it will be distributing $119 million in grants for this year. The amount is made up of funds allocated by Congress and by philanthropic donations to the organization. Most of the money will go to regional and local NeighborWorks offices, so homeowners will best be served by working with one of their 237 (and growing) local offices.
The NeighborWorks network has provided homeowner and long-term renter support for almost twenty years, and its support has been invaluable over the last two-to-three years as even solvent homeowners have struggled against the Great Recession. Moreover, one of the key components of the member offices’ services has been education/counseling to protect people from mortgage and refinance scams.
The NeighborWorks goals for their grants are worthy of posting in their entirety:
• Provide quality counseling for struggling homeowners at risk of foreclosure
• Stabilize communities hard-hit by the current crisis by putting vacant properties back into productive use
• Empower consumers through financial and homeownership education and counseling
• Create homeownership opportunities for low- and moderate-income families, and
• Produce and manage affordable, high-quality rental properties.
Organizations like Neighborworks are able to do the work they do because of the cooperation of government, the private sector, and philanthropic organizations. They provide the needed connections among three sectors that have a history of keeping a safe distance from the other two. The sum certainly should be put directly to the people who need it by the people who know how to make the dollars work best for their communities.
