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Philly nonprofits plan to create 5,000 Black and brown homeowners through a Wells Fargo grant

The $7.5 million grant will help tackle tangled titles, diversify the real estate and appraisal industries, support housing counselors, and fund construction of affordable housing.

LaTanya Whitehead is a first-time homeowner who got $1,000 toward her closing costs through an initiative to create 5,000 homeowners of color in Philadelphia. She used those funds, an additional $1,000 from the Urban League of Philadelphia, and $10,000 from the city's first-time home buyer grant program to purchase her rowhouse in Port Richmond.
LaTanya Whitehead is a first-time homeowner who got $1,000 toward her closing costs through an initiative to create 5,000 homeowners of color in Philadelphia. She used those funds, an additional $1,000 from the Urban League of Philadelphia, and $10,000 from the city's first-time home buyer grant program to purchase her rowhouse in Port Richmond.Read moreSteven M. Falk / Staff Photographer

LaTanya Whitehead tried to buy her first home a couple years ago. But she couldn’t afford one, in part because she didn’t have enough cash on hand, even though she had been saving.

“I had no idea how much it would be with the closing costs and everything else,” said Whitehead, who has been working since she was 14 and is a single mother of a 14-year-old daughter and 22-year-old son. She thought, “Oh, my goodness, if I use all my money, I’m going to deplete my savings, and this is all that I have.”

But in August, she was able to purchase a rowhouse in Port Richmond for herself and her daughter, thanks to a $10,000 grant from Philadelphia’s first-time home buyer program and $2,000 from the Urban League of Philadelphia. Half of the Urban League’s gift came through a new “Philly 5 by 25″ initiative to help 5,000 Philadelphia households of color purchase homes by 2025, a plan that includes distributing $3 million to 3,000 households for down payment and closing cost assistance.

Whitehead wasn’t expecting the additional $1,000.

» READ MORE: Philly brings back its popular first-time home buyer grant program

“To have that additional money to help me achieve my dream of home ownership, it’s priceless,” said Whitehead, 44, a program manager at a Philadelphia nonprofit who is African American. And she didn’t have to use up her savings.

In addition to direct financial assistance, the “Philly 5 by 25” initiative will help home buyers and owners through efforts to tackle tangled titles, help diversify the real estate and home appraisal industries, support housing counselors, fund the development of affordable housing, and help people stay in their homes. A collaborative of Philadelphia community groups, led by the civil rights and social services nonprofit Urban League of Philadelphia, is using a $7.5 million grant from the Wells Fargo Foundation.

Philadelphia is one of eight cities Wells Fargo chose for funding through its campaign to create 40,000 homeowners of color by 2025 in places with significant racial disparities in home ownership rates. Wells Fargo officials said the Philadelphia collaborative stood out for the strength of its partnership and planned strategies, the organizations’ track records working with Black and Latino residents, and community buy-in.

» READ MORE: Education and transparency can help eliminate racial bias in home appraisals, a Philly task force says

According to a report released by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia last year, the gap in home ownership rates between Black and white Philadelphians in 2019 was slightly wider than it was three decades ago. Owning property is how most American households build generational wealth. But for generations, Black and brown households have faced barriers to buying homes.

In 2017, Philadelphia sued Wells Fargo, accusing the bank of discriminating against Black and Latino home buyers by steering them toward mortgages that were more expensive and riskier than the loans offered to white borrowers. Wells Fargo disputed the city’s allegations and did not admit liability, but as part of a 2019 settlement agreement, the bank agreed to pay Philadelphia $10 million to fund city programs that support home ownership for low- and moderate-income residents.

Stephen Briggs, Wells Fargo’s vice president of community relations in Pennsylvania and Delaware, said the bank’s latest initiative, which is not part of the settlement, “builds on ongoing efforts to increase racial equity in home ownership.”

» READ MORE: It’s no easier for Black Philadelphians to become homeowners now than it was 30 years ago

That goal is baked into the mission of the Urban League of Philadelphia, which is working on the “Philly 5 by 25″ campaign with the Hispanic Association of Contractors and Enterprises (HACE), Congreso De Latinos Unidos, New Kensington Community Development Corp., and the Urban Affairs Coalition.

“It is no secret that Black and brown families are falling behind and missing out on opportunities,” said Abraham Reyes Pardo, director of housing at the Urban League of Philadelphia. For example, he said, many of these households missed out on record-low mortgage interest rates earlier in the pandemic.

The goal of the “Philly 5 by 25″ collaborative, Reyes Pardo said, is to make sure under-resourced and historically excluded populations can access the resources and services they need.

To learn more about how aspiring home buyers can receive assistance, call 215-985-3220, Ext. 203, email housing@urbanleaguephila.org, or contact any organization in the collaborative.

The Philadelphia Inquirer is one of more than 20 news organizations producing Broke in Philly, a collaborative reporting project on solutions to poverty and the city’s push toward economic justice. See all of our reporting at brokeinphilly.org.