Donna & Joe’s Story

 After 13 moves in 16 years, Donna and Joe were tired. They had lived it all with their daughter: rooms infested with cockroaches, neighborhood drug activity, racial harassment and violence outside their window, buildings sold, and rents raised and raised again. The couple was worn down physically from decades of demanding hard labor and mentally from living in stressful, unhealthy environments, barely scraping by. Both were disabled because of illness or injury and close to facing eviction. It was time to find a cheaper and more stable way of living.

They set their sights on a small, manufactured home outside the city, but quickly discovered that a bank loan was out of the question due to their lack of credit. Donna refused to give up. She searched online until she found Opportunity Finance Network (OFN) member New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, a Community Development Financial Institution. NHCLF offered fixed-rate long-term “Welcome Home” mortgage loans and accepted proof of past loan and utility payments as alternative forms of borrower credibility. Donna and Joe cried the day they closed on the home.

“Every day I wake up here, I’m happy,” said Donna. “We save a little money, we work on things, and we’re getting there. But the biggest thing is, this is our forever home. We are—finally—home.”

Over 6,000 people from low-wealth communities are benefitting from affordable mortgages or small business loans and financial mentoring made possible by OFN and Focusing Philanthropy.

Learn more about Focusing Philanthropy + Opportunity Finance Network