KOOTASCA Celebrates National Homeownership Month

The month of June is a month that celebrates a variety of national months, one of those being National Homeownership Month, a time to celebrate and promote the benefits of owning a home and the importance of homeownership for individuals, families, and communities across the United States.

It was first established as a week-long observance in 1995 and was expanded to a full month in 2002. For this special month, we reached out to KOOTASCA Community Action’s Sandy O’Fallon to talk about the month.

As a community action agency just celebrated 60 years of providing services to households in Koochiching and Itasca county helping individuals, families and communities fight the multiple causes and challenges of poverty. Her specific position oversees the homebuyer program which consists of Education, individual counseling and downpayment assistance.

What’s the difference between the three? Sandy starts with workshops

Then Counseling

Lastly the Downpayment funds

Need a road map to explore homeownership what every first time buyer needs to know to increase confidence and become a prepared buyer KOOTASCA offers pre purchase advice tailored to your unique financial situation and provides the ABC’s in homebuying education to help navigate your path to a place called home.

KOOTASCA’s Home Stretch workshop is June 18th Dates and times for upcoming workshops are available at KOOTASCA.org or you can call 218-999-0828 Owning a home may be easier than you think.

Many people believe they would never be able to qualify for the loan needed to purchase a home of their own. They think a 20 percent down payment is mandatory, even though there are numerous down payment assistance programs they may qualify for. They think their credit score isn’t good enough, even though there are concrete steps anyone can take to improve their score. They think you need to have a high income, although this is highly subjective. And they feel like they’d have to navigate the complicated process on their own when free advisory services are available from KOOTASCA. The bottom line is that homeownership is the main way families accrue wealth in our country, and whole sectors of our population have been systematically kept out of this aspect of our economy. KOOTASCA is working to change that in our community one family at a time.