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Homes for the Upwardly Mobile & the Prospective Homeowners Association: A Social Venture, utilizing shared-equity solutions and Green renovation, to create income and housing opportunities for individuals and families who have heretofore been left out of the economic mainstream.
Helping youths (18-24), most of whom we work with are currently homeless, keep a temporary roof over their heads and obtain Living Wages from on-the-job training in Green Construction, by renovating single-family and multi-family residential properties.
The processes H.U.M. uses turn these properties "Green" within the Cal-Green Code for 2010. Once the properties are "greened", they are then sold to a California Housing Cooperative, and the youths given the first right of refusal to purchase shares in the housing co-op. This effectively makes them first time home owners and they begin to accrue equity towards their future retirement.
Options are available to purchase shares and lease back properties to themselves, at below market rates. Cooperatives are democratically controlled by the shareholders.
The gap between income and rent continues to widen and despite a robust level of rental housing, there remains a dearth of housing that can be considered affordable,
according to new data released April 21, by prominent national housing advocates.
There are over 300,000 homes that can be Greened and brought up-to-date in Los Angeles & Orange Counties alone.
Some of the land can be made more dense, in order to hold more people in the same space, without ruining the character of any neighborhood. Instead of gentrification, unification of additional families on existing property parcels to share the costs and beautification will be the order of the day!
Keeping people in their homes is a priority. The non-profit plans to buy families' homes before they lose them to foreclosure, renovate those and sell them to the housing co-op. Providing the previous owners shares in the housing co-op, in return for the title on their property. Then, as shareholders themselves of the co-op, they can direct the co-op to lease their own homes back to themselves.
Densifying their property to house just one additional family, if it's a single-family property. Then allowing another family who has lost their home to move into the second home on the same property.
Helping get the homeless productive again and earning income, so they can support themselves and put a roof over their heads, while putting them into a position where they can build future equity is just as important.
Workers will have the first right of refusal to buy shares in the co-op, and the right to lease a living unit from the co-op. How can this be accomplished? By the Greening of existing housing stock! There has never been an opportunity like this before, where a non-profit organization such as ours could buy REO's for "pennies on the dollar",
with an advantage provided by law.
"National First Look Program". Here is the gist of it: After expressing interest in a property, the First Look Period will last approximately five to 12 business days during which the NSP Grantee will conduct inspections and establish costs to repair in anticipation of the financial institutions price offer. In the event that no NSP grantee exercises its preference to purchase an REO property during the First Look period, the financial institution will follow its normal process to sell the home on the open market.
Currently, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) offers a complementary pilot program in which NSP grantees receive an exclusive option to purchase so-called HUD Homes at a discount prior to those homes being made available to the investor community. The FHA pilot, alongside today's agreement expands the opportunity for NSP grantees to gain access to REO properties through a national first-look standard option.
HUD's Neighborhood Stabilization Program was created to address the housing crisis, create jobs, and grow local economies by providing communities with the resources to purchase and rehabilitate vacant homes. NSP grants are helping state and local governments, as well as non-profit developers, acquire land and property; demolish or rehabilitate abandoned properties; and/or offer down payment and closing cost assistance to low to middle-income home buyers.
Grantees can also stabilize neighborhoods by creating "land banks" to assemble, temporarily manage, and dispose of foreclosed homes. To date, HUD has allocated nearly $6 billion in funding to state and local governments and non-profit housing developments. In the coming weeks, HUD will allocate an additional $1 billion in NSP funding, which was provided through the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.