In The News - 9/3/2024
KXLY
Spokane organization awarded grant to help increase homeownership
The Washington Department of Commerce recently awarded $29 million in grants to help organizations get more people into homes.
And one local organization will receive some of that money.
Take Up the Cause has worked on several projects over the past few years to make housing more affordable in Spokane.
Chauncey Jones, founder of Take Up the Cause, said his grandmother owned a house in this neighborhood, not far from here, which provided him a place to stay when he was younger. Now, he aims to keep the dream of homeownership alive for others in the Spokane community.
Jones now operates Take Up the Cause at the community center in the same East Central neighborhood where he grew up.
The organization is one of seven working together to create the Black Homeownership Spokane Cohort.
The Center Square
WA race-based home loan program serves 19 in first months, 20 more pending
It’s been two months since the launch of a Washington state home loan program aimed at countering racial discrimination in housing policies of the past.
The Covenant Homeownership Program is a product of the state’s 2023 Covenant Homeownership Act, which directed the Washington State Housing Finance Commission to conduct a study on ways to reverse “racial disparities in home ownership.”
Margret Graham, Communications Manager for the Washington House Financing Commission told The Center Square via email, “Nineteen households have closed on their homes using this program.”
Graham said, “An additional 20 or so loans are reserved, meaning the homebuyers are moving forward toward hopefully closing.”
The Covenant Homeownership Program provides downpayment and closing cost assistance for first-time homebuyers in the form of a loan, secondary to the primary mortgage loan. The loan has a 0% interest rate. It is paid back on the sale or refinancing of the home.
Individuals are encouraged to use the program if they have “deep roots” in the state, defined as being related to someone who lived in Washington prior to the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act.
In April 1968, the passage of the Fair Housing Act made racial discrimination in housing illegal. Discrimination persisted despite the new law; however, the state no longer had an official or legal role in enforcing and upholding it.