Almost exactly a year after she attended an informational presentation about the County of Santa Clara’s Empower Homebuyers SCC program, Laura and her two kids moved into their new home. She did her research to compare the Empower Homebuyers SCC down payment assistance program with local below market rate programs. Ultimately, she decided the County’s…
Success Stories, Updates
First Apple Affordable Housing Fund Groundbreaking: At SAHA’s Veterans Square in Pittsburg
November 11, 2020Today we were proud to take part in the groundbreaking ceremony for Veterans Square – a 30 home affordable housing development by SAHA (ICYMI the press release from this morning before the event is here). We got to hear from Susan Friedland, CEO of SAHA, Contra Costa County Supervisor Federal D. Glover, Mayor of Pittsburg…
Success Stories
“Permanent Home Feeling” – an Empower Homebuyers SCC Update
September 23, 2020Housing Trust Silicon Valley’s virtual fall event, On the House, is on Tuesday, October 6. Get your tickets here! Empower Homebuyers – the Measure A funded down payment assistance program created by the County of Santa Clara and administered by us – has kept going through the pandemic and helped create 15 first time homebuyers…
Success Stories, Updates
PATH to Home: An Update on Villas on the Park
July 30, 2020During the first week of March, several of our team walked a few blocks from our downtown San Jose office to Villas on the Park to celebrate the grand opening. At the time, COVID-19 restrictions were starting to appear (the shelter in place order would come a week later) but we were thrilled to attend…
Success Stories
Guardino Affordable Housing Scholarship Welcomes Class of 2020
June 26, 2020We’d like for you to meet Elizabeth, one of the Guardino Affordable Housing Scholarship awardees of 2020. Elizabeth’s life was marked by movement but also staying in place around Turlock, a town in Stanislaus County. Before she turned 17 she had lived in seven different places – doubling up in houses of extended family members…
Success Stories
Affordable Housing and Leadership: Our Friends at Resources for Community Development
May 14, 2020We’re inspired by all of our development partners and proud to stand with them all – and Resources for Community Development is just one example of the organizations that do great work and inspire us to do even better with our own. One of our very first acquisition loans was made to RCD – $1.1…
Success Stories
Empowered by Home: Justin’s Story
May 8, 2020An assistant principal at Branham High School and a single dad, Justin Ponzio dreamed of having a home for his kids – ages five and six – to live and grow. When he found the Empower Homebuyers SCC program in 2019, the trio lived in a rental near a busy frontage road that was far…
Success Stories
Empowered by Home: Megan’s Story
May 8, 2020Megan, a Bay Area native and a special education teacher at Union School District in San Jose, had been living in a tiny apartment in Campbell. In her third year of teaching, she knew she wanted to stay in her community and was ready for something bigger but like so many educators in the region,…
Success Stories
Empowered by Home: Karen and Ngoc’s Story
May 7, 2020After emigrating from Vietnam, Karen and her husband Ngoc worked in the Bay Area for 14 years – she in banking and him as a technician – and were renting incrementally smaller living spaces even as their family grew to include two small children. When they found Empower Homebuyers SCC in 2019, they were on…
Success Stories
Home over Time: Michele & Don’s Story
May 4, 2020Michele, an elementary schoolteacher, worked with our homeownership team in 2016 for our Below Market Purchase (BMP) program we administer for the city of Santa Clara. We caught up with her in 2018 – two years after she and her husband Don moved in, and they both expressed joy at living in a place where…