The Community Partners Housing Fair
Our team is hard at work preparing for our first annual Community Partners Housing Fair to be held Saturday, March 9 between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. at the Riviera Beach Marina Village located at 200 East 13th Street. This educational event will include plenty of free food, entertainment and family-friendly activities such as face painting for the kids.
We hope everyone will help us spread the word. We have many exciting things planned!
- Agencies, banks, developers, and realtors will offer guidance on pathways to home ownership, credit counseling, qualifying for a home loan or refinancing, and guidance on tax filing.
- The first fifteen people through the door will receive a free credit report and the opportunity to receive a free-hour counseling service pass, which will be good for 30 days.
- We will also have a raffle where all participants will have the opportunity to win $1,000 towards their closing costs as long as they can show evidence of the closings to our staff.
This undertaking would not be possible without Annetta Jenkins, executive director of the Riviera Beach Community Development Corporation (RBCDC) for her organization’s partnership along with support provided by Riviera Beach Community Redevelopment Association (RBCDA). Together, our organizations are raising awareness to the fact that Palm Beach County continues to struggle with the supply of workforce housing for professions such as teachers, nurses, firefighters, and other workers whose wages do not keep pace with home price appreciation. Community Partners of South Florida is leading the charge with a comprehensive set of solutions, services, and funding to make home ownership possible.
Since 1995, Community Partners has helped over 1,200 people realize homeownership. We take a neighborhood-by-neighborhood approach in areas where opportunities for upward economic mobility are greatest. For example, our Homebuyers Club developed in partnership with the RBCDC, is one example of this work. The six-month training program from February-June 2019 provides home-buyer education, a down-payment savings, and $2,000 matching program for a limited number of eligible families. All of these advantages help to inspire civic engagement through community ownership
We also provide our first-time homebuyers with down-payment assistance and financial education as the local affiliate for NeighborWorks® America, which manages The Wells Fargo NeighborhoodLIFT® Program. Eighty eligible families will be provided through this program with $5,000 to assist with down payments. This assistance offers a hand up -- not a hand out -- on the pathway to homeownership. The first-time homebuyer workforce that qualifies falls within the 80-120 percent range of Area Median Incomes (AMI), meaning they have household incomes between $60,000-$90,000 per year.
Community Partners is making it possible for our local workforce to become homeowners. This strengthens their financial stability and contributes to our economy, which in turn creates strong, sustainable families and communities. Our organization as a whole is driving comprehensive community development and creating systemic change for generations through this type of housing and financial empowerment along with our child and family mental health services and other community services.
Please feel free to email me at lcharles@cp-cto.org or call me directly at 561.841.3500 ext. 1014 if you have additional questions.