NeighborWorks Campaign Exceeds $5B

The NeighborWorks Campaign for Homeownership has announced that it helped 40,300 families achieve homeownership and generated more than $5.39 billion in new mortgage lending in the first quarter.More than 150 NeighborWorks organizations in 46 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are participating in the campaign. The organization said 89% of recently assisted households were either low- or moderate-income homebuyers, and 91% were first-time homebuyers. "We are especially proud of the $153 million direct financial contribution of NeighborWorks network organizations in creating new homeowners," said Ken Wade, chief executive of NeighborWorks America. Approximately 22% of the campaign's recent homebuyers are African-American, whereas data provided by the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act indicate that only 6% of mortgage loans issued by the conventional market in 2003 (the most recent year for which data are available) served African-American buyers. Similarly, 24% of the campaign's recent borrowers were Hispanic, compared with 10% of loans in the conventional market in 2003. The organization can be found online at http://nw.org.