This is an article I did for The Voice, the newspaper of Seattle social service agency Neighborhood House.\u00a0 The article tells the story of the Nguyen family, who were able to buy a home with the help of the Homeownership Program at the International District Housing Alliance (IDHA), where I was their counselor.<\/p>\n
The story is available here:<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.kcha.org\/currentresidents\/documents\/SeptemberVoice.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n Home ownership program makes purchase possible<\/p>\n BY <\/span><\/span>E<\/span><\/span>LAINE <\/span><\/span>M<\/span><\/span>AGIL<\/span><\/p>\n Special to the Voice<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Ever since the Nguyen family moved from Vietnam to the United States, They\u2019ve worked toward the American dream of owning a home.<\/p>\n Settling at Park Lake Homes in White Center, both parents found jobs and saved what they could.<\/p>\n After years of hard work and with help from the International District Housing Alliance\u2019s Homeownership 1-2-3 program and KCHA\u2019s Resident Opportunities and Self-Sufficiency Down Payment Assistance Program, the Nguyens\u2019 dream has come true.<\/p>\n The Nguyens didn\u2019t just buy any home\u2014they bought a brand-new, single-family house in southwest Seattle. The location is perfect, not too far from their old apartment at Park Lake.<\/p>\n “I\u2019m thankful that the house is real and affordable, and works with my income,” said Mr. Nguyen, who asked that his first name not be included in this story.<\/p>\n Nguyen and his wife have four children. The eldest boy is already thriving at the University of Washington and the eldest girl is set to attend college soon.<\/p>\n Nguyen said the house provides needed space for himself and his family.<\/p>\n The Nguyens were able to add to their savings with an Individual Development Account, which provided them matching grant funds for every dollar they saved.<\/p>\n They also received down-payment assistance from another nonprofit agency called HomeSight.<\/p>\n The KCHA ROSS Down Payment Assistance Program provided $15,000 toward the purchase of their new home.<\/p>\n This is money that the family will never have to pay back, as long as they live in the home for at least three years.<\/p>\n Residents who get the grant and then move within the first few years must pay back some of the money.<\/p>\n Either way, this program can help residents make a bigger down payment on a home, which means they will need a smaller loan and pay less interest over time. It can also mean the difference between a family being able to buy a home or continuing to rent.<\/p>\n Not all residents are eligible for ROSS grants or IDAs, but Homeownership 1-2-3 can still help them find down-payment assistance programs and make the sometimes confusing process of buying a home easier to understand.<\/p>\n With translators on staff, IDHA focuses on helping immigrants and refugees with the home buying process.<\/p>\n So far, the International District Housing Alliance has helped 11 families from KCHA and the Seattle Housing Authority purchase homes.<\/p>\n With the ROSS grant and a little guidance from Homeownership 1-2-3, more KCHA residents will likely be able to buy homes soon.<\/p>\n If you are interested in learning about home ownership programs, you can contact IDHA at (206) 623-0122.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Elaine Magil is a homeownership counselor\/educator with the International District Housing Alliance.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is an article I did for The Voice, the newspaper of Seattle social service agency Neighborhood House.\u00a0 The article tells the story of the Nguyen family, who were able to buy a home with the help of the Homeownership Program at the International District Housing Alliance (IDHA), where I was their counselor. The story … Continue reading »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5,3,4],"class_list":["post-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-homeownership","tag-media-hits","tag-seattle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.magil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.magil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.magil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.magil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.magil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.magil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43,"href":"http:\/\/blog.magil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions\/43"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.magil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.magil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.magil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}