$7.1 Million of Funding Now Active for 427 Potential Cook County Homeowners

Frederick Seaton (in center) of the South Side was the first recipient of a $15,000 down payment assistant grant on August 24 during the NeighborhoodLIFT event at McCormick Place. The NeighborhoodLIFT program is a collaborative effort between Wells Fargo, Neighborhood Works and Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago.
Frederick Seaton (in center) of the South Side was the first recipient of a $15,000 down payment assistant grant on August 24 during the NeighborhoodLIFT event at McCormick Place. The NeighborhoodLIFT program is a collaborative effort between Wells Fargo, Neighborhood Works and Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago.

$7.1 Million of Funding Now Active for 427 Potential Cook County Homeowners The Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago (NHS Chicago) recently hosted a two-day event at McCormick Place to connect national down payment program NeighborhoodLift, a national mortgage assistance program sponsored by Wells Fargo, with prospective Cook County homeowners. Over 750 people attended the event, each vying for $15,000 grants for homes in low-to-moderate income communities in Cook County. In order to qualify potential homeowners will take homeownership and credit related classes and verify that their annual income did not exceed a cap of $67,700 for a family of four in Cook County. 427 families received grants at the recent event. Of this, 51 were military service members, veterans, teachers, law enforcement officials, firefighters, and emergency medical technicians, who benefitted from an additional $2500 in down payment assistance. All grant recipients now have 60 days in which to find and contract a home in order to receive the down payment grants. In the event the grantees do not find a home in this time, the funds will return to a local pool to fund future down payment assistance grants through NHS Chicago. Additional down payment grants may be available in late October. Contact Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago at 773-349-4111 to sign up for these future grant opportunities.

The event’s first grant recipient was Frederick Seaton of Chicago. Seaton, 59, a single-father of four teenage boys, admitted that he had procrastinated on homeownership for a long time because he didn’t have money for a down payment.

“NHS is the largest housing counseling agency in the state of Illinois and we are proud to help prospective homeowners receive down payment grants so that they can realize the dream of homeownership and benefit from the stability it provides for both the family and community,” said Kristin Faust, NHS president. “By working with national program NeighbohoodLIFT we were able to secure over $7 million dollars in grant money to help Cook County residents become homeowners.”

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