Nehemiah: Making the American Dream possible for first-time homeowners

From CBS News: The Nehemiah project began in the 1980s building privately-owned homes on land that nobody wanted in East Brooklyn and sold the homes at prices that were affordable to working class families. Church and community organizers mobilized local politicians to sell the land for almost nothing and provide subsidies for community members and raise money that could be used for loans. The program has built 6,500 homes and created an estimated $1.5 billion of wealth for first time Black and Latino homeowners.

Click here to read the original story.

Issue Areas:

Housing, Land Use, Sustainable Development

Impact Areas:

Distributed Trust and Power, Equity

Actors:

BIPOC Communities, Lending, Banking, and Financial Institutions

Communities Served:

BIPOC Communities, Communities Experiencing Economic Hardship

Strategies:

Collective Action, Easing Economic Burdens for Individuals, Redefining Land / Land Ownership

Success Factors:

Building Distribution Systems, Eliminating Barriers, Embracing the Power of Relationships, Leveling the Playing Field, Meeting People Where They Are At, Overcoming the Big Challenges

Geographic Region:

North America

Countries:

United Kingdom

Date:

September 11, 2022

More Resources:

The Surprising Lives of Germany’s ‘Basic Income’ Raffle Winners

From Marjolein Koster, Ties Gijzel / Reasons to Be Cheerful: A randomly selected group of lucky Germans are reaping the benefits of a guaranteed monthly income. An organization raffles off a year’s worth of guaranteed monthly income, allowing recipients to...

eToro Launches GoodDollar And Begins Delivering Universal Basic Income

From Lawrence Wintermeyer / Forbes: GoodDollar is a basic income product that works via the public blockchain network. Because blockchain is decentralized and public, this platform could be used globally, non-reliant on any one government. GoodDollar uses G$ coins which...

Conversation with Vitor Del Rey

Vitor Del Ray is the Principal of Instituto GUETTO, an organization he founded to combat structural and institutional racism by empowering Black, Brown, and Indigenous individuals for the workforce and promoting social mobility. Through initiatives like Mapa Preto da Educação...

Conversation with Alexandra Goossens-Ishii

Alexandra Goossens-Ishii works as Programme Coordinator for environment, climate change & biodiversity for Soka Gakkai International (SGI), a community-based Buddhist organization that promotes peace, culture and education. Her work focuses on the UN processes related to the environment, climate change...

Evanston has an affordability problem – community land trusts can help

From Duncan Agnew / Evanston RoundTable: Through a land trust, Community Partners in Affordable Housing sells homes to buyers at a fixed cost while maintaining ownership of the land they’re built on, allowing those who wouldn’t otherwise be able to...

Conversation with Avriel Diaz

Avriel Diaz co-founded and serves as the president of Walking Palms Global Health, an organization focused on building community resilience amidst climate and environmental disasters. She has dedicated years to forming international transdisciplinary partnerships aimed at enhancing community resilience in...