Daytona Beach Launches Assets for Independence

Through a partnership with the federal government, local United Way, private donations and area agencies, about 64 Daytona Beach families could become homeowners -- some as early as next summer.

It's a nationwide program to help low-income, working individuals and families get a down payment to purchase their own homes. Although the program has been working nationally since 1999, this is the first attempt at the program locally, and other agencies have been doing it statewide. The first local participants will be clients from Family Renew Community, the Neighborhood Center of West Volusia and Flagler Habitat for Humanity.

The program -- intended as a hand up, not a hand out -- teaches people not only how to save toward their home but makes them prove they can maintain a budget. Experts say the Assets for Independence program benefits not only the person who gets into stable housing, but sparks the economy. The homeowner will pay property taxes, which helps police, fire and other municipal service departments, and may occupy a vacant foreclosed home. "You have a real economic multiplier," said Ray Salazar, executive director of the United Way of Volusia-Flagler Counties, whose Community Foundation dedicated money to start the program. "The new homeowner becomes a small economic engine that produces wealth and opportunity for other people."

According to News-JournalOnline, the program works this way: "The prospective homebuyer steadily saves up to $2,000 and attends about 10 classes, such as budgeting, savings, household management and credit repair. In return, they'll get another $4,000 toward the purchase of a house -- $2,000 from the Community Foundation and $2,000 from the federal government."

"The whole program is teaching them the habit of being successful in their home," said Renee Gay, project director for the United Way, which is administering the $300,000 program. "We don't want to put people in a home that they can't keep and will be foreclosed upon."

Read more about this beneficial and truly rewarding program at News-JournalOnline, or for more information, call Renee Gay at 386-253-0563 or go online to liveunitedinvolusiaflagler.org/CommunityFoundation/afi/index.htm .