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CAAR Workforce Housing Funds Helps Heros
business, caar, dave phillips, funds, homebuyers, real estate, workforce,
Many people who play key roles in ensuring community welfare now feel much more at home, thanks to the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors’ Workforce Housing Fund.
This award-winning program started in 2003 to offer home down-payment assistance for police officers, firefighters, teachers and nurses.
Dave Phillips, chief executive officer of CAAR, says the association chose these four professions because they are the backbone of Charlottesville’s workforce and great members of the community.
“We found they could not afford to live in the community they served,” Phillips says. “We’re able to help five to 10 people per year get into a home. When a participant later sells the house, the down payment comes back to the fund.”
With $400,000 in the fund, CAAR is on target in the fourth year of its five-year plan to build the fund to $500,000, Phillips says. CAAR funds and markets the program, and its partner, the nonprofit community-development organization Piedmont Housing Alliance, administers the program and identifies candidates.
Phillips says people in the Charlottesville area wanted to expand the program to include homebuyers in other professions. That desire drove Piedmont to join forces with a variety of interests to create the Thomas Jefferson Community Workforce Housing Fund, aimed at offering low-interest loans and down-payment assistance.
“Everyone wants to talk about affordable housing, and we actually did something about it,” Phillips says.
Story by Paige Clancy
