For Cedric Jones, purchasing a home was a draining experience.
He would ultimately lose out to another buyer with more money on hand despite his continual efforts to understand legalese, look around for different loans, apply for those loans, and confirm real estate brokers’ statements.
The 56-year-old described it as being like fighting a war.
Upon completing a 12-hour workday on Monday, the veteran insurance adjuster sat with his 2-year-old dog, Roscoe, in one hand and a recently opened Dos Equis beer in the other, reflecting on his two-year struggle to find and buy a home.
Many people tell you one thing, and then someone else tells you something else, and you’re like, “Wait a minute.” Jones remarked, “Something doesn’t sound right.” The next step is to locate a trustworthy individual who is aware of it.
LISC, the Houston chapter of the nationwide Local Initiatives Support Corporation, provided Jones with assistance.
By providing services to Houstonians like Jones through its Own the HOU project, the group aims to address the housing crisis.
With the help of a $7.5 million grant from Wells Fargo, the program, which consists of a partnership between Harris County, the city of Houston, and local NGOs, aims to place 5,000 people of color in new homes by 2026.
The effort has assisted more than 2,300 residents in either keeping their existing properties or moving into new ones, according to Laura Jaramillo, executive director of Houston LISC.
“Our lives shouldn’t be determined by our ZIP code,” she continued.
What is Own the HOU?
The initiative’s five primary goals are to: educate and connect Houstonians to specialists; improve credit and savings; increase supply; preserve prior homeownership; and expand access, according to Clare Boulet, deputy director of Houston LISC.
We aim to raise awareness, facilitate homeownership, increase the variety of housing constructed, assist individuals in remaining in their houses, and address systemic obstacles such as minimum wage, credit score, and student loan debt, added Boulet.
The program is not specifically designed to help with down payments. The majority of those $7.5 million dollars are directed toward a wide range of housing initiatives, however some may help prospective new homebuyers with down payments.
She claimed that early on, we made a fairly determined attempt. Only a small portion of the people we were attempting to assist would benefit if we limited the use of these funds to down payment assistance.
LISC helps people manage complex titles and helps Houstonians like Jones become homeowners.
According to Boulet, there are instances in which a person owns all or a portion of a property, but their name is not listed on the deed—the official document that transfers ownership from seller to buyer.
According to the deputy director, I first learned about it following Hurricane Harvey. Due to the complicated title issue, many low-income homeowners were unable to obtain repair assistance (from FEMA or insurance companies).
In addition to a dedicated page of resources that assist residents in finding a real estate agent, evaluating their financial status, and even helping with home inspection and appraisal, Boulet advises anyone interested in homeownership to visit the Own the HOU website and look through the education courses that are offered to guide a prospective homebuyer through the process.
We’ve been able to get started right away thanks to these monies,” Boulet remarked. We anticipate that our five methods will be more active over the coming years.
An initiative s impact
Jones used to reside in a small apartment building in Kashmere Gardens, where he was awakened at 4 a.m. every day by his neighbor’s child.
Jones claimed that her child would wake up every day, scream as loudly as he could, and then sit there while she let him yell.
It took a while to go from paper-thin walls to a three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment.
Jones turned to the neighborhood nonprofit Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Corporation, which is funded by Own the HOU, for assistance.
Jones then enrolled in and completed an eight-hour course that equipped him for the onslaught of paperwork and red tape that lay ahead. Additionally, he was paired with a counselor from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, whom he spoke with at every stage.
On October 31, Jones and his wife closed on a 1,900-square-foot home in Spring with the assistance of his counselor, a $10,000 down payment, and a lot of perseverance.
“The trees were the selling point for me,” Jones remarked. Only large oak trees provide shade; there are no pine trees at all. It’s quiet and peaceful. It’s calm.
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