Margert News Archive 1
Margert Wins New HOME Award Far Rockaway, July 28, 2006....Margert Community Corporation, the
community-based nonprofit housing agency serving the Rockaways and southeast
Queens, recently announced that it has once again been selected as Local
Program Administrator for the
New York State HOME Program.
The HOME program is administered by the New York State Housing Trust Fund
Corporation (HTFC). The program uses federal HOME Investment Partnership Program
funds to expand the supply of decent, safe, and affordable housing within the
State.
The HOME Program funds a variety of activities through partnerships with
counties, towns, cities, villages, private developers, and community-based
non-profit housing organizations. The program provides funds to acquire,
rehabilitate, or construct housing, or to provide assistance to low-income
home-buyers and renters. Funds must be distributed in accordance with needs and
priorities identified in the State's Consolidated Plan.
Margert's 2006 HOME award, in the amount of $ 450,000, is designated to
provide purchase assistance to 16 residential units of moderate income housing
in the county of Queens.
View the Award
Letter.
For more information on the MCC First HOME program, or to apply for
assistance, please visit Margert's HOME program
page.
Access to Home Comes to Queens
The Full Story
Far Rockaway, July 21, 2006....In March of 2005, the
NYS Housing Trust Fund Corporation announced the availability of funding for an
exciting new program called
Access to Home.
Designed to make dwelling units accessible for low and moderate income persons
with disabilities, the program provides assistance with the cost of adapting
homes to meet the needs of those with disabilities and enables individuals to
safely and comfortably continue to live in their residences and avoid
institutional care.
In a recent
press release, Governor Pataki announced grant awards to eligible not-for-profit entities
that have substantial experience in adapting or retrofitting homes for persons
with disabilities. Margert Community Corporation is pleased to announce that
our application has been selected for funding, and an award of $ 200,000 has
been reserved for Queens County.
Adaptation work must meet the needs of those with
physical disabilities and seniors with an age-related disability. Examples
include: wheel chair ramps and lifts, stair glides, handrails, easy-to-reach
kitchen work and storage areas, lever handles on doors, roll-in showers with
grab bars, etc. “Accessibility modifications present a challenging array of
design specifications and work measures,” says Wayne L. Murchison, Margert’s
Access to Home program manager. “We’d really like to begin incorporating the
principles of universal design, through which living environments are usable by
all people, into all our housing development efforts.”
Homeowners and renters may qualify for assistance
under the following criteria: the occupant is physically disabled or has
substantial difficulty with an activity of daily living because of aging; the
dwelling unit is a permanent residence; and, total household income does not
exceed 50 percent of Queens County median income.
“We are excited by this opportunity to work with a
new partner, Queens Independent Living Center, Inc., whose mission is to empower
people with disabilities to take control of their own lives,” says Joseph Barden
executive director of Margert. “This partnership will significantly increase
our outreach within the disabled community of Queens County, and dramatically
improve our capacity to serve their unique needs.”
Assistance will be provided in the form of a
forgivable loan. Loans to homeowners and renters will be up to 100% of the
total cost of the adaptations to a maximum of $25,000. Loans will be at 0%
interest and repayment will be forgiven at the end of seven years as long as the
residence remains the applicant's primary residence.
Margert expects to begin taking service requests
under this program in the fall of 2006.
The Access to Home program is funded
from fees earned by the Housing Trust Fund Corporation and administered by the
New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal. top^
Homeowners Assisted with Property Tax Arrears
The Full Story
Far Rockaway, April 21, 2006....Margert Community
Corporation, the community-based nonprofit housing agency serving the Rockaways
and southeast Queens, is pleased to announce that it has joined forces with the
New York City Departments of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), Finance
(DOF) and Environmental Protection (DEP), to provide information and assistance
to homeowners faced with property tax arrears.
Property owners that receive a 60-day notice from NYC
DOF have fallen into arrears in real estate taxes and other liens. These owners
are often offered loans by a variety of lenders to pay off the liens.
While many of these offers may be reputable, our
communities have witnessed an increase in unfair lending practices that harm the
borrower and put their ownership in jeopardy. Taking advantage of Margert
Community Corporation’s free educational seminars and counseling services can
help property owners avoid becoming victim to these lenders, often referred to
as “predatory lenders.”
Common unfair lending practices may include: loan
terms that make monthly payments unaffordable; excessively high loan fees and
interest rates; and aggressive sales tactics and fraud that conceal the true
cost of the loan.
The agencies mentioned above, along with their
nonprofit partners, have scheduled community outreach workshops in each borough
of the city.
Margert Community Corporation
will present a 2006 Tax Lien Sale Outreach Session on Tuesday, May 2nd, from
5:00 PM to 7:00 PM, at the DOF Business Center, located at 144-06 94th Avenue in
Jamaica, Queens.
If you or somebody you know has
received a notice by mail that your property has been listed on a published lien
sale list, it means that the City’s records show you owe property taxes, water,
sewer or other property-related charges and accrued interest.
You needn’t lose your home or
fall prey to deed theft scams! Please call Margert Community Corporation, at
718-471-3724, for more information. Registration is encouraged, though not
required.
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Emergency Repairs Available for Senior
Homeowners
The Full Story
Far
Rockaway, January 31, 2006....Margert Community Corporation, the community-based
nonprofit housing agency serving the Rockaways and southeast Queens, is pleased
to announce that it has once again been selected as a Local Program
Administrator for the New York State RESTORE program.
Targeted for very low-income senior owner-occupants of 1 - 4 family homes, the
RESTORE program provides GRANTS of up to $ 5,000 per dwelling, to correct severe
housing deficiencies that may threaten the life, health or safety of the senior
homeowner.
Typical emergency repair requests have included roofs, electrical work, stoops,
doors, plumbing, safety bars or rails, wheelchair ramps and heating and
distribution systems. The existence of an eligible emergency must be determined
by an on-site inspection by Margert's repair auditor. Work scopes are highly
prioritized, and no "cosmetic" work is allowable.
Application may be made to Margert Community Corporation, at 325 Beach 37th
Street in Far Rockaway, 718-471-3724, or on the Margert website, at
www.margert.org (just click on the "contact us" button from any page).
Funded
by Governor Pataki through the New York State Housing Trust Fund Corporation,
and administered by the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR),
senior homeowners must document income eligibility and sign a "recapture"
agreement to return the money if title to the home is transferred to any party,
other than another income-eligible senior, within three-years.
"Annual funding for the RESTORE program is extremely limited," says Wayne
Murchison, senior energy auditor and RESTORE emergency repair assessor. "We are
prohibited from maintaining a waiting list, so please call as soon as an
emergency condition appears in your home. While we almost certainly will be
unable to meet every request for service this year, a large response should
strengthen our advocacy efforts for higher funding levels in future state
budgets."
Actual "after" photo of recent emergency repair work
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Margert Combats Predatory Lending Practices
The Full Story
Far Rockaway, Tuesday, October 18, 2005....In a
press release issued today, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Department of Housing
Preservation and Development (HPD) Commissioner Shaun Donovan launched a new
$1.35 million initiative to combat predatory lending, one of the most daunting
challenges facing elderly home homeowners, first-time home buyers, fixed-income
homeowners, and minority and immigrant homeowners. "Preserve Assets and
Community Equity" (PACE) is a comprehensive new program that includes outreach,
education, financial assistance and legal strategies to current homeowners and
new home buyers who are a part of groups and neighborhoods historically targeted
by predatory lenders. Irresponsible lending practices and risky mortgages can
result in homeowners losing their homes, which is the most traditional vehicle
for asset building and wealth creation. This new financial education, legal and
credit assistance measure will focus first on reaching residents in the
communities of Southeast Queens, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Bushwick, which are
neighborhoods that have experienced high rates of predatory lending.
Predatory lending practices strip equity away
from homeowners. A few examples include when a financial provider repeatedly
refinances a loan within a short period of time and charges high points and fees
with each refinance, when a financial provider packs a loan with single premium
credit insurance products like credit life insurance and does not adequately
disclose the inclusion, cost or any additional fees associated with the
insurance, or when financial providers charge excessive rates and fees to a
borrower who qualifies for lower rates and fees. Studies have shown that black
and Hispanic homeowners are too often sold mortgages that require higher than
normal interest rates. In 2005, a Federal Reserve Bank study revealed that in
2004, regardless of income levels, blacks were about three times as likely as
whites to borrow through mortgages with excessively high rates. The target
neighborhoods in the PACE pilot have foreclosure action rates two to four times
higher than other neighborhoods in the City. The foreclosure filing rates in the
target neighborhoods run approximately 10% of the total residential 1-4 family
homes there.
A targeted
marketing initiative will focus first on homeowners who have taken predatory and
high-risk loans, or are at risk of so doing. It will also target people who are
planning to buy their first home. The public education outreach effort will
include posters, brochures, postcards and targeted advertisements on bus
shelters and in community newspapers with the slogan, "Don't Borrow Trouble."
Over 30,000 postcards and 20,000 brochures will be distributed and phone kiosk
and bus shelter ads will be placed. The City's 311 citizen service center will
be used to refer callers to community-based organizations whose staff will be
given comprehensive legal and technical training, and ongoing back-up
assistance. The initiative is expected to reach thousands of households in its
target market and result in thousands receiving financial or legal counseling.
The initial
participating community-based organizations are Margert Community Corporation
(serving homeowners in Southeast Queens), Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens
Council (Bushwick), and Pratt Area Community Council (Bedford-Stuyvesant). In
conjunction with South Brooklyn Legal Services and the Parodneck Foundation, the
community-based organizations will provide legal assistance, counseling, and
loan remediation to hundreds of homeowners at risk of foreclosure. These
community based organizations will also help to arrange financing for
rehabilitation loans, educate clients about credit repair, and improve their
access to traditional credit.
"We have
struggled too hard to break down the barriers to equal access to homeownership,"
says Stephanie Lawes, housing director at Margert, "to allow our gains to be
threatened by unfair and predatory practices. We intend to pursue an aggressive
strategy of outreach, intake, education and individual counseling."
HPD will work
with the non-profit organizations South Brooklyn Legal Services (SBLS), the
Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project (NEDAP), and the Parodneck
Foundation as well as the Queens Legal Aid Society to develop the PACE program.
Implementation has begun in North Central Brooklyn and Southeast Queens to
assess homeowners' complicated financial and legal situations and provide early
intervention, followed by counseling and referrals for appropriate legal and
financial assistance. After assessing the pilot, the PACE program partners, in
collaboration with private sector support, expand to the northeast Bronx and the
north shore of Staten Island and then it will build a citywide network of
organizations with these capabilities.
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