Affinity Bank
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 19, 1999

Two New Grants Aid County Housing Projects

Two modest-income housing projects in Ventura County have been awarded sizeable grants by the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco’s Affordable Housing Program (AHP), with the help of Affinity Bank of Ventura.

The Cabrillo Economic Development Corporation (CEDC) has been awarded a $100,000 grant for a "neighborhood revitalization program" to provide affordable housing in Ventura’s West end for qualifying modest income families. A second grant of $70,000 was awarded to The Turning Point Foundation, a Ventura-based non-profit serving the homeless mentally ill, to "help them purchase their transition house site in Simi Valley," according to Affinity Bank president, Michael McGuire.

"We’re very excited," said Rodney Fernandez, Executive Director of CEDC, regarding the neighborhood revitalization program. "This grant was critical to our being able to bring our neighborhood revitalization to Ventura City. In partnership with the Westside Community Council, we’re going to identify, purchase, rehabilitate, and resell selected houses in the West end to qualifying modest income families. With the AHP award, we were able to leverage the money we received from the bank to get an additional $200,000 from the City of Ventura. This gives us $300,000, which will be applied to 10 homes."

The program will utilize Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) 203-K rehabilitation financing to buy and restore the properties. The city and AHP grant funds, according to Fernandez, will be used to "write down" (reduce) the resale price of the houses by about 20%. "This means that if the value of the property is $150,000, we can write down that amount by $30,000 using the AHP and City funds, so that a qualifying family could purchase the home for $120,000." CEDC will provide home ownership counseling with each sale.

Fernandez added, "Our plan is to work in partnership with the Westside Community Council to identify target areas that need revitalization, so we can concentrate the effort, get high visibility and more impact. We hope the effort will encourage others to fix up the rest of the houses in the area," Fernandez said.

Ventura has also been selected as one of 20 communities in the country to be spotlighted on Saturday, October 16, 1999 in HUD’s "Raise the Roof" program, as a result of this project. Affinity Bank applied for and received a similar grant in 1998 for CEDC’s acquisition and rehabilitation of 10 properties in Filmore.

The $70,000 Turning Point Foundation grant also sparked excitement among sponsors and supporters. The grant completes a long-awaited housing project for Ventura County’s homeless low-income mentally ill, according to Foundation Executive Director, Clyde Reynolds. "Now we have the final dollars to add a transition house to our system of care."

Last year, Turning Point Foundation served over 1,100 mental health clients with its many programs. The Foundation provides a 10-bed shelter with drop-in services and a 10-bed permanent housing facility for people who are homeless and mentally ill. "The addition of a transition house program will give some of our shelter clients a place to stay for up to two years while they prepare to move into more permanent housing arrangements," Reynold’s said. "Our goal is to help people make a connection back to society." The city of Simi is contributing $25,000 and the County of Ventura is contributing $20,000 to the project.

"Affinity Bank played a critical role in all of this," Reynolds stressed. "This is the first time we’ve worked with them. They were wonderful! We needed their sponsorship to apply for the grant with the Federal Home Loan Bank. We also needed their commitment to provide a mortgage loan of approximately $60,000 to finance the rest of the cost. They did both."

According to Affinity Bank president, Michael McGuire, grant requests with the Federal Home Loan Bank are a "joint effort" of the member bank (in this case, Affinity Bank), and the project sponsor (in this instance, Turning Point and the CEDC). "The member bank must provide assurance to the FHLB that affordable housing goals will be met for an extended period of time, at least 10 years. We are committing to 30 years on the transition house project."

McGuire added, "We want to support more local affordable housing causes. We’ve got access to several granting sources. We hope people will contact us. If they meet the guidelines, we want to talk to them."

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