West PDX Today

Nazdar Zada loves her Hillsboro home.

Until recently, home ownership seemed out of reach for her. As a Kurdish refugee, Nazdar has accomplished a lot since moving to Portland with her family in 1996. She earned a bachelor’s degree and moved to Washington, DC for a career in international media. But when Nazdar’s mother fell ill, she moved back to her parent’s one-bedroom Portland apartment to help.

Living and caring for her parents in those cramped quarters was stressful. Nazdar longed for something more.

“I wanted a place to put my family together, a place for Thanksgiving dinner,” she recalls. “But as a single person, with medical bills and student loans, working as a full-time caregiver for my elderly parents, it didn’t seem possible.”

The City of Hillsboro, in partnership with Proud Ground, helped turn Nazdar’s dream into a reality. Using funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program for a $80,000 down payment, Nazdar could afford her first home. She and her parents moved into the home in 2019.

“It makes me feel like I’m rich. I’m not. But I feel like I am,” she says.

After Nazdar’s mother died in 2021, her home has remained a hub for her father and extended family.

“My nieces and nephews can come over and spend time with grandpa. It’s what I always wanted,” she says.

Building Lasting Affordability: The Community Land Trust Program

Proud Ground, the nonprofit organization that helped Nazdar buy her home, is an example of a Community Land Trust. In this model:

• A qualified buyer owns the home and pays the mortgage, taxes, insurance, and upkeep.
• The house is the buyer’s to remodel, pass to heirs in a will, or sell. But the Trust buys and permanently owns the land under the home. 
• This agreement benefits the buyer by lowering costs enough to make homeownership a reality. 
• The grant covers the down payment, one of the biggest barriers to buying a home and monthly mortgage payments are often less than rent.

Buyers enjoy the stability and economic prosperity that homeownership brings. Families don’t have to move as often. Kids don’t have to change schools. Neighborhoods maintain stability and everyone’s quality of life improves.  

The program benefits the community by creating a growing stock of affordable home that will remain affordable forever.

“The City of Hillsboro makes a one-time $80,000-$90,000 investment that will pay off in perpetuity,” says Omar Martinez, the City’s community development program coordinator.

When the owner sells, they receive 25% of the home’s equity. The rest goes back to the Trust to help the next family.

So far, 20 houses scattered throughout Hillsboro have been purchased with one already resold to another, eligible buyer. Martinez thinks it’s a great start. “Maybe in five years we will have 40 homes!”

Funding Future Investments: The Community Development Block Grant

The Community Development Block Grant is a long-standing federal program designed to fund local community development activities, such as affordable housing, anti-poverty programs, and more.

The City of Hillsboro has participated in the program since 2000, pooling its smallish award with other Washington County jurisdictions to create a joint entitlement. However, as Hillsboro’s population grew, so did the amount of the grant. 

Eventually, the grant grew large enough that it made fiscal sense for the City of Hillsboro to self-administer the funds. This move, completed in 2018, allows 100% of the federal money — around $750,000 a year — to go directly to programs.

Hillsboro pays for all the administrative and public services costs associated with these programs separately out of its General Fund budget.

“It gives us the flexibility to empower our community by using these funds to meet our community’s need in a more direct and efficient approach,” Martinez explains.

Self-administering expands and strengthens partnerships among nonprofit and private-sector organizations in enhancing community development. It also allows Hillsboro to focus 100% of CDBG grant money on affordable housing through the Community Land Trust, rehab programs, and public facility improvements.

The rehab program helps keep low- or fixed-income Hillsboro residents in their homes, while the Community Land Trust program fosters permanent, affordable home ownership.

Read more about Hillsboro’s programs to help low-and moderate-income residents to buy or stay in their homes. 

Original source can be found here