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The land trust has a program to help people of color make a down payment on their house.
By Sadie Ensana
A land trust in Vermont has a program to help people of color make a down payment on their house.
For the past two years, over 20 people buying homes for the first time got a big financial boost.
They were part of a program through Champlain Housing Trust that offers a $25,000 forgivable loan.
That’s for buyers who make below the median income and identify as Black or as a person of color.
Michael Monte, CEO of Champlain Housing Trust, said: “We did it as a way of essentially balancing off the sort of years of racial discrimination that has occurred in housing and homeownership for decades.”
Now the program is expanding statewide, after Champlain Housing Trust received a $20 million gift from the philanthropist MacKenzie Scott.
The organization is working with nine other affordable housing groups to offer these forgivable loans.
“So that $25,000 additional down payment assistance was available just initially, just to us because of the grant we got,” Monte said. “And then … we’re making a grant available to the rest of the state to do this.”
Monte said the group has used $1 million of that gift to invest in the homeownership equity program.
“There will be 30 folks who will be taking advantage of this over the next few years,” Monte said.
Sadie Ensana reported this story on assignment from Vermont Public. The Community News Service is a program in which University of Vermont students work with professional editors to provide content for local news outlets at no cost.
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Categories: Housing, Race and Division
Past discrimination justifies current discrimination? The program is clearly illegal.
Yes, according to the social justice agenda. The goal is to create equal outcomes. Society is deemed racist if outcomes are not equal or variances are minimal and acceptable according to the UN. Families can’t even guarantee equal outcomes amongst family members. How can this possibly be achieved throughout society and nations unless it is forced.
And in Vermont blacks have a higher educational attainment rate and their median income is in the same $50K range as the whites. Why, when Vermont was the first to abolish slavery and has this kind of result must we bear the blame of what happened in other states. BLM’s agenda has no place in Vermont. It’s high time Vermonters understood this and stood up to decry BLM and Defund Police that followed in its wake.
It’s an easy solution, just identify as original person, trans, you’ll be at the top of list.
Just another way to grift is all it’s about.
Forget that Vermont never allowed slavery from the begining.
Forget that USA was working from it’s origination to abolish slavery, which we were handed down from the British Empire.
Forget that the Quakers were the push and in Penn, they were allowing blacks to be free from the start.
Just cover up all the lies.
For $25k I’ll pull my pants down to my knees and identify as black!
🤣Umm..
Are you sure you want to say it like that?
Mr. Scott could have done this himself, given money to whom every he wanted to buy a home, he didn’t need to fund a Vermont grifting organization.
The Affordable housing grift in Vermont runs strong, people are making bank on keeping all the Vermonters from home ownership.
they will do any thing to keep this economy moving forward/// we will see the results in a year when all of these crooks implode the whole system///
It’s called “predatory lending” or fraudulent (collusion) lending practices for the uneducated borrower. Beyond the fact it is blatantly illegal and a clear violation of civil rights and lending practices. The bait is a forgivable $25K grant, while the switch is saddling the borrower with a mortgage rate at up to 7%, high property taxes, insurance, utilities, and upkeep under a bloated, inflated bubble market about to burst. The borrower is all ready under water before they turn the key to the front door – the $25,000 is laundered in some fashion between the colluding parties.
It is actually illegal, but not just predatory…..
If they did this lending for only white people, what would be said?
This violates many national laws on lending.
There should be massive fines and compensation due to those who have been discriminated against….all the 97% Vermonters.
When will they ever learn? Obviously they never learned from the sub prime mortgage crisis of 2007-2010 and the resulting devastation.
How stupid for the donors and detrimental for the recipients? As you say, give someone $25,000 to commit to 15 to 30 years of payments they can’t afford? Their loss will be compounded exponentially when the house is foreclosed for failure to meet the obligation. And then the bank and the town are left holding the bag.
They (bankers, realtors, tax and fee collectors) learned it very well leading up to the crash of 2008. They rearranged the deck chairs and started the whole process over again. Hooking even more fish into their scam – post-scamdemic. There are several million people who bought into the market way too high and are now facing financial ruin. Exactly the same game, different victims with this scam because debt enslavement is what keeps the banksters and goverment running over us.
The donors are charitable Trusts (an ironic term) so they write off the “donation” – no capital gains, no taxation. The non-profiteer get a kickback and favors from the lender and/or realtor – it is collusion and conspiracy to commit fraud – yet, only Trump is charged with such “crimes” with no evidence and serial liars as witnesses. Let that sink in and brace for impact.
Michael Monte’s reparations program, whether using private or public funds is clearly in violation of US civil rights codes and also fails in demands for authentication of who would qualify. “Identify as…” is the new honor system, access buzz phrase for anyone who considers themself a victim of some perceived societal bias or “feels marginalized”…
How does this support equality when thousands of the working class of ALL races in this state can’t afford rent, let alone a mortgage. Whoops- that’s the problem. I used the word EQUALITY but they use the word EQUITY which means something entirely different. Nothing to see here, folks.
This program demonstrates the Trust hasn’t learned the Law of the Common. At least I now know where to not waste my contributions.