Putting Dreams Within Reach

When Akidda Goppy became a mother, she set a goal to buy a home for her family but knew she was not yet able to purchase. As she looked for resources on where to start, she came across the Fast Track program from Neighborhood Housing Services of Baltimore Inc. Fast Track provides financial education services to clients who are not yet buyer-ready.

Goppy spoke about how much she loves her new home during a recent Fast Track graduation celebration. She is one of the many clients who have graduated NHS of Baltimore's Fast Track program to become homeowners since 2014, when NHS of Baltimore began looking for ways to engage with clients who would have otherwise been turned away.

"Before then, if someone was not buyer-ready, they could take our homeowner education class and meet with a counselor," NHS of Baltimore Executive Director Dan Ellis said. "A counselor could say what they needed to do, such as reduce debt. We would give specific guidelines. But then the client would leave and be on their own to implement it."

Because counselors did not have the capacity to follow up or provide ongoing support, most of those potential homebuyers never came back to NHS of Baltimore.

But the Fast Track program changed that by assigning dedicated coaches to work with those clients one-on-one and address their individual financial challenges. The first coach was Kareema Pinder, who initially took on the coaching role in addition to her other responsibilities and now oversees the growing Fast Track program full-time.

"We saw that it was really working," Pinder said. "People were getting through the program. Their savings were going up. They were actually working on their credit and letting somebody hold them accountable. We were guiding them, but they were putting in the work."

Fast Track levels the playing field. It is part of a national push by NeighborWorks America and other industry stakeholders to increase the rates of minority homeownership.

NeighborWorks America provides grants and technical assistance to network organizations such as NHS of Baltimore across the country to ensure that clients who would otherwise be turned away can instead get on a path toward homeownership, especially those in minority communities.

In 2018, NeighborWorks America's National Homeownership Programs and Lending department set a three-year goal to increase to 49 percent the number of new NeighborWorks minority homeowners. By the end of fiscal year 2019 — only the second year of the plan — minority homeownership had already reached 52 percent among NeighborWorks organizations. According to the most recent data, the national minority homeownership rate is approximately 46 percent. In addition, of the more than 26,000 homeowners NeighborWorks organizations created in fiscal year 2019, about 23 percent were Hispanic, 20 percent were black, 4 percent were Asian, and 17 percent were of multiple races or did not identify their race.

To support these communities, network organizations provide financial education, long-term counseling or coaching, and access to financial products and services such as matched savings and safe, small-dollar loan products. The support leads directly into the homebuying process and allows each organization to provide a continuum of service.

"Of all the programs we run, this is the one that has the greatest level of appreciation from our clients," Ellis said. "People come back, trust us, know us and stay in a relationship with us. That is the piece that is absolutely critical."

Seeing her clients become homeowners "makes me feel awesome," Pinder said. "This is what we do and why we do it — to help families realize they can accomplish their goals, their dreams."