Agency helps people own homes

September 11, 2005; As originally appeared in Danbury News-Times by Robert Miller

DANBURY — It was always the golden ring just the grasp of Lucy Silva and Jose Grecco.

For five years, the young couple planned to buy a house — maybe this year, for sure the next. But every year, there were new hurdles and expenses, including the birth of a daughter, Liz.

Then help arrived in the form of Housing Development Fund Inc. The non-profit agency, based in Stamford, specializes in finding ways to let people buy their own homes. The agency was able to get Silva and Grecco needed money for a down payment.

"They took care of the closing costs, the lawyer's fee, everything," Grecco said. "And they got us a very good interest rate on our mortgage."

As a result, Lucy, Jose and Liz are now living in a house on Willow Trail in Danbury. "With a backyard and everything we need," Lucy Silva said. "It was our time, and it's unbelievable."

The realization of Silva's and Grecco's good American dream could be replicated many times over thanks to the Housing Development Fund and United Way of Northern Fairfield County.

United Way — with the help of several banks— recently partnered with the Housing Development Fund to open a Housing Resource Center on West Street in Danbury.

The center will bring prospective home buyers, available resources and a staff from Housing Development Fund that is skilled in figuring out how to match home and buyer.

"We've actually been working here for a few years," said Joan Qarty, the development fund's executive director. But because the fund's offices are in Stamford, she said "it was a long trek for people here to come to us. This will make it easier."

The 16-year-old fund uses contributions from private individuals, banks, corporations and state and federal agencies to help people buy houses. Through these contacts, it can get prospective homeowners grants, low-interest loans and interest-free loans to help them get over the first hurdles of home ownership, such as the down payment, closing costs and legal fees.

The people applying, for this help must be first-time buyers who earn no more than 80 percent of the median family income for the region. In Connecticut, the 2000 census put that number at $65,521. In greater Danbury, the median family income ranges from $61,899 in Danbury to $127,981 in Ridgefield.

The fund also works closely with families, providing counseling and education about the financial responsibilities of home ownership. It teaches them how to balance income, debt and credit in a way that will make banks willing to give them loans.

In some cases, said Betsy McGroarty, director of the fund's home buyer program, counselors might tell people to wait to get their financial house in order before shopping for any physical structure.

"We've worked with people for two or three years before they were ready to buy a home," she said. "We also counsel people after they buy the home, and continue to educate them — we want them to keep owning their homes."

"Out of 400 purchases, we've only had two foreclosures."

Trish Palmer, chairwoman of the United Way's housing opportunity committee, said the agency already helped operate a Key Ring program to provide security deposits to families who want to rent apartments in the region. "Our next step was to address home ownership," she said. "It was a natural evolution."

Palmer said the United Way also realized that banks, lenders and other agencies in the region had ways of helping people with home ownership. "But the resources were spread all over," she said. "So we decided we wanted a housing resource center."

United Way then put out a bid to different housing agencies to provide those services to the Danbury region.

Housing Development Fund was a natural fit, said Kim Morgan, marketing and communications director for the United Way of Northern Fairfield County. For one thing, it was already operating in the area. It also had experience working in cities with a strong mix of ethnic groups and different languages.

Eileen Tolentino, the first Danbury resident the fund helped, bought ahome in 2003. With the opening of the Housing Resource Center, more people will buy homes, stay in the community, and make it stronger.

"I never thought I'd be able to own my own home" Tolentino said. "But it was easy. It took us six months. I never thought it was possible. But it was."

To contact the Housing Resource Center, 8 West St., Danbury, call (203)-798-6527