Public and Private Funding Programs


Freddie Mac’s Catch the American Dream
Freddie Mac’s 25 initiatives aim to meet the challenge set forth by President Bush in 2002 to expand minority homeownership 5.5 million new households in the next decade. As the purchaser of one in six mortgages, Freddie Mac has committed to providing more than $400 billion in mortgage financing to meet this goal.

Fannie Mae's American Dream Commitment
Fannie Mae has pledged to help 6 million families—including 1.8 million minority families—become first-time homeowners over the next decade. Fannie Mae's commitment to first-time homebuyers is part of the next stage of the company's American Dream Commitment, a plan announced in 2000 to provide $2 trillion in private capital for 18 million minority and underserved Americans to own or rent a home by the end of the decade.

En Su Casa Denver
U.S. Senator Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) and Freddie Mac have joined forces to launch this $25 million program to increase the homeownership rate for Latino families in Denver. En Su Casa Denver has two principal objectives: reach and prepare more Latino families for homeownership through free bilingual borrower counseling and then provide them with access to flexible, low-downpayment mortgages.

Countrywide Home Loans’ We House America
The Calabasas, Calif-based mortgage company offers its “One Trillion Dollar Challenge,” an initiative to fund $1 trillion in home loans to minorities and lower-income borrowers, and to borrowers in lower-income communities, between 2001 and 2010.

Washington Mutual
The Seattle-based mortgage company has teamed with Earvin "Magic" Johnson's Johnson Development Corp. (JDC) to increase mortgage lending and homeownership in underserved minority communities within the nation's largest urban areas. The partnership operates the Solid Start program, which is a free financial counseling and credit-building that prepares participants to be in a position to be approved for their first home loan by the end of the 12- to 18-month period. To date, the joint venture has opened more than 20 inner-city home loan centers from Los Angeles to New York.

The company also has launched a new initiative to help provide housing to American Indians. The first project, called New House Lane, is located on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, Wash., and consists of 25 single-family homes of varying sizes on one-acre sites. Completed in 2004, the homes were rented to families earning less than 30 percent of the area's median income, and these families will eventually be eligible to purchase the homes.

Devon Bank’s Islamic Finance Program
Chicago-based Devon Bank offers a “murabaha” homebuying program in 11 states that enables devout Muslims to achieve homeownership without violating an Islamic law that prohibits the payment of interest. Under the program, the bank purchases the property. It then re-sells the home to the Islamic buyer for a marked-up price that includes an amount equal to what would be the interest over a 30-year period.

Lenders Tailor Mortgages to Illegal Immigrants
An increasing number of lenders are looking to serve the illegal-immigrant population living in the United States in the quest to become homeowners. For instance, some require borrowers to present an Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN) issued by the Internal Revenue Service that shows that they are working and paying taxes instead of a Social Security number that offers proof of citizenship. Among the lenders serving undocumented immigrants are Alabama-based New South Federal Savings Bank, which is launching its Casa Mia mortgage program in Phoenix, Houston, and Atlanta as well as in its home state; and Milwaukee-based MGIC Investment Corp., which offers mortgage insurance to lenders nationwide that provide loans to illegal immigrants.

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