Housing Opportunities for Families: Developing Community Partnerships with a Focus on Home Sustainability

1
Housing Opportunities for Families Developing
Community Partnerships with a Focus on Home
Sustainability

• Pamela Turner, Debbie Purvis, Mailyn Perez,
• Sharon Gibson, Luz Cooper Al Burns
• University of Georgia

2
Workshop Objectives

• Understanding the need for flexibility in CYFAR
  Programming
• Lay of the ground in Colquitt County Housing,
  People, Change
• Identifying stakeholders building community
  partnerships
• Identifying Pre- Post-Purchase Housing
  Education Needs
• Developing Programs that Promote Healthy, Safe
  and Sustainable Homeownership
• Evaluating the impact Outcomes to Date

3
Programming with Purpose

• Be flexible Be realistic
• Identifying stakeholders they might not be who
  you think
• Sustaining homeownership is the primary goal of
  pre- and post-purchase education programs.
• Pre-purchase counseling shown to reduce
  delinquencies (Hirad Zorn, 2001)
• Next Steps
• Effectiveness of post-purchase counseling is
  inconclusive (Todd, 2005 Wiranowski, 2003)
• Our intent
• Foreclosure prevention
• Maintaining the investment

4
Education - Before and after papers are signed

• Why pre-purchase education?
• What does the program look like?
• High Need Audiences
• One size does not fit all!

5
Before and After Papers are Signed Pre Post
Purchase Education

• Pre purchase
• Basic Banking
• Learning the language of homeownership
• Post purchase
• Maintenance
• Living as part of a community
• Keeping your head above water
• Prevention
• Credit good bad

6
Voz de la Familia Building flexibility into
CYFAR

• CYFAR philosophy
• Recognizing opportunities
• Adapting your program
• Understanding and following the prescribed process

7
Colquitt County

• Agricultural county which recently experienced
  significant expansion of industrial workforce
• Increased economic growth resulted in demand for
  affordable housing and establishment of safe
  neighborhoods

8
Building Community Partnerships

• UGA Partners UGA Housing Demographics Research
  studies UGA Georgia Initiative for Community
  Housing - Moultrie/Colquitt County team UGA
  Archway Partnership
• Local Community Partners USDA Rural
  Development, local banks realtors, Moultrie
  Police Department,

9
Building a Sustainable Housing Program

• Home Buyer Education
• Housing Fairs
• Financial literacy education
• Education on banking and credit issues
• Working with the faith community

10
Building Safe Neighborhoods

• Extension CYFAR and the City of Moultrie working
  together
• National Night Out
• The City of Moultries Community listening
  sessions
• Community Safety surveys conducted by Valdosta
  State University

11
CYFAR Families Their Stories

• Safe neighborhoods affordable housing for new
  immigrant families
• Achieving the American Dream

12
Lessons Learned

• Need for trusted community members as the contact
  with the community (a Luz and Mailyn)
• Strong partnerships with stakeholders buy in (AL)
• Need for strong content knowledge (Pamela)
• Dont be afraid to dream big
• Be ready to react to happy accidents make the
  most of every opportunity
• Willingness to stay the course even when it gets
  tough (Sharon Debbie)

13
Working for Sustainable Home Ownership

• Pamela Turner prturner_at_uga.edu
• Sharon Gibson smsgibs_at_uga.edu
• Debbie Purvis dpurvis_at_uga.edu
• Al Burns al.burns_at_ga.usda.gov
• Mailyn Perez mperez_at_uga.edu
• Luz Cooper lmcooper_at_uga.edu