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Killeen Veteran Receives Home
On Thursday, August 13, 2015, TSAHC joined Bank of America and NeighborWorks Waco in donating a mortgage-free home to a disabled military veteran. This home will provide stability to the family and ample space for the veteran to raise her daughter. Bank of America generously donated the home to TSAHC, in coordination with the National Community Stabilization Trust. TSAHC partnered with NeighborWorks Waco to ensure the necessary repairs on the home were done prior to transferring it to the deserving veteran.
At the home donation ceremony, City of Killeen Mayor Pro Tem Jose Segarra presented the family with a City of Killeen Proclamation, and Ralph Gauer, District Coordinator for Texas State Senator Troy Fraser, honored the family with a Proclamation from the Texas Senate.
Know any veterans in need of affordable housing?
TSAHC has a limited number of ACT-VET properties that are available at a discounted rate of 25% off the listing price to disabled and/or low-to-moderate income veterans. TSAHC encourages local veterans services providers, REALTORS®, and housing partners to advertise these properties to veterans who may qualify.
Learn more about the ACT-VET program. |
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Recent Grant and Donations to Support Our Programs
TSAHC would like to recognize the following for their generous donations to support the programs we deliver to provide safe, decent, affordable housing for all Texans.
Bruce Fielder
City Bank Texas
$5,000 donation to support the Texas Foundations Fund
Edwina Carrington
$5,000 donation to support the Texas Foundations Fund
Thank you to these organizations and individuals for their continued
support of our programs and mission.
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Texas Foundations Fund Success Story
Since 2008, TSAHC has invested nearly $1.9 million through grants from our Texas Foundations Fund to support non-profit organizations and rural government entities that provide housing services to very low-income families. In 2014, Motivation Education & Training, Inc. (MET) in the Rio Grande Valley received a Texas Foundations Fund grant to provide critical home repair services. This is a story about a family MET helped with the grant.
Mario Alberto Ramirez and his wife, Maria live in Rio Grande City, TX. They have two young daughters and are expecting their third child in October.
The Ramirez family came to Motivation, Education & Training, Inc. (MET) seeking assistance for home repairs. Mario had been gifted a vacant lot by his parents, and he and Maria had started building their own home out of cinder block in 2012.
They were able to complete just enough of the house to move in. Their limited funds did not allow them to install plumbing lines, so they had no running water and had to use bathroom facilities at Mario's brother's home next door.
Using a 2014 grant from the Texas Foundations Fund, MET was able to provide the repairs the Ramirez family needed. They replaced doors; installed plumbing lines and a hot water heater; finished out the bathroom with drywall, ceramic tile, a new sink and commode; and they completely renovated the kitchen to include a sink and more cabinet space.
The Ramirez family expressed tremendous gratitude to MET and TSAHC for all of the great work that was done to their house. Mario and Maria stated that these repairs have made their lives so much easier, and now they do not have to inconvenience relatives to use their bathroom facilities or fill buckets of water.
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New Home Buyer Education Requirement
Effective October 1, 2015
Effective October 1, 2015: Home buyers using our Down Payment Assistance and/or Mortgage Credit Certificate programs may use ONLY those providers listed on the Texas Financial Toolbox
to meet their home buyer education requirement.
These trusted providers are generally non-profit organizations or government entities who are either HUD-approved or certified to provide home buyer education.
Approved Online Classes
Our approved Online Home Buyer Education class providers are: FrameWork, eHomeAmerica, and Clear Point Credit Counseling Solutions. You can take these self-paced classes ranging from $25 to $99 in the comfort of your home.
Approved In-Person Classes
Click here to find an approved In-Person Home Buyer Education class near you. These interactive classes ranging from no cost to $50 offer one-on-one counseling and allow you to connect and learn with other home buyers.
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Registration is Open for
Housing and Financial Counselor Training
TSAHC is pleased to announce a training opportunity for Texas housing and financial counselors. Register here for the following Housing and Financial Counselor Training provided in partnership with NeighborWorks America:
HO247:Post-Purchase Education Methods - $100*
Monday-Friday, October 12th -16th
Westin Galleria
5060 West Alabama Street
Houston, TX 77056
Thank you to our sponsor for this training:
The deadline to register for the training is Friday, October 2, 2015. For detailed information about registration, a course description, scholarship opportunities and hotel accommodations, visit the Event Page.
Questions?
Feel free to contact Sarah Ellinor at sellinor@tsahc.org or 512.220.1171.
*This is a required course for NeighborWorks' Professional Certification in Homeownership & Community Lending. For more information about the courses offered and the different certifications provided by NeighborWorks, including requirements to obtain or maintain a certification and the application form for each, click here.
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TSAHC Has Office Space Available For Lease
TSAHC is in the process of renovating 1910 East MLK Jr. Blvd. in Austin. The newly renovated office space will be available on or around October 1, 2015. Our preference is to rent it to nonprofit organizations engaged in affordable housing or community development. The flexible floor plan will accommodate one to 12 individuals depending on your needs. Click here for details, and if you are interested, please contact Liz Bayless at LBayless@tsahc.org or 512-477-3564. |
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Below is an August 2015 entry from On The House, a weekly blog TSAHC launched in 2014 on affordable housing topics. The entry honors our blog's first birthday. We invite you to drop by On The House each week as we share information on important housing issues, provide an inside look into our programs, and share other valuable resources. Click here to sign up to receive the blog each week.
On the House Blog Celebrates One Year
A year ago, TSAHC launched the On the House blog. In the first entry, we stated  , "Our purpose with this blog is to share information that helps all of us confront Texas' affordable housing shortage head-on" by delivering content that would "tackle important housing issues, provide an inside look into our programs, and share other valuable resources." We hope you feel we are meeting that objective.
To mark our blog's birthday, we would like to share links to the resources we turn to for news related to housing and research that shows how housing impacts the lives of everyone.
- How Housing Matters, an effort of the Urban Land Institute's Terwilliger Center for Housing with support from the MacArthur Foundation, provides "news, research, and practical information on how a high-quality, stable, affordable home in a vibrant community contributes to individual and community success."
- The Home Story is an online source of housing-related information published by Fannie Mae. Through The Home Story, Fannie Mae applies its "expertise and experience in housing to inform renters, homeowners, and, particularly, the next generation of homeowners."
- Perspectives is a hub for the latest community development insights and resources created by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas' Community Development Department. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas also has a wealth of research and data on regional, national, and international economic conditions, analyses, and outlooks.
- On the Home Front, presented by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, provides "insight into the key housing policy issues of the day, and takes readers 'behind the scenes' into the work of affordable housing advocates across the country through news round-ups and advocate profiles."
- The National Housing Conference and Center for Housing Policy offer publications that "cover a range of topics, programs and policies related to the broad goal of identifying and meeting the nation's housing challenges."
- The Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University publishes an annual report on the The State of the Nation's Housing and tracks the nature and extent of home improvement activity in the Remodeling Futures Program.
- Down Payment Resource Blog provides information about resources, opportunities, and news for today's home buyers.
What do you want to know?
As On the House enters its second year, we will continue to strive to deliver the most valuable information on topics relevant to housing, the industry and related issues. If there is a program or issue you'd like to learn more about, let us know. We want to provide content that interests our readers.
As we did in our first blog entry, we again extend an invitation to drop by On the House every week as we tackle important housing issues, provide an inside look into our programs, and share other valuable resources. We encourage you to sign up to receive the blog if you haven't, and share the blog with other people who may be interested in the topics we cover.
Here's to another successful year for On the House.
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