Posted by:
John Duda
Federal grant to fund shared equity homeownership
NCB Capital Impact, the non-profit affiliate of NCB, has been selected as one of the five winners of the 2011 Social Innovation Fund grant competition organized by the Corporation for National and Community Service. The SIF is an innovative federal program which seeks to address the needs of low income communities by leveraging the existing knowledge and capacities of proven non-profit intermediaries in the funding process.
NCBCI has been awarded $1 million to help community-based organizations implement its “shared equity homeownership” model in 11 metropolitan areas across the country. Traditional efforts to help residents of low income communities buy homes (like one time grants to assist with home purchases) often fail to maintain that benefit in the long term, because nothing insures that the homes purchased will remain affordable when they return to the market. “Shared equity homeownership”, on the contrary, uses a variety of strategies like community land trusts and limited equity cooperatives to help people towards homeownership and equity while at the same time ensuring that the homes in question remain affordable in the long term. By alleviating some of the speculative pressures common in the real estate market and by finding a middle ground between helping develop private and community wealth, “shared equity homeownership” is an effective long-term approach to the housing crisis.