Pilot aims to help Hamilton renters obtain their first mortgage
Global News
Kiwanis Homes, the Hamilton Community Foundation and the city are looking to pool resources for a pilot project seeking to help renters own homes they live in.
A new pool-based pilot project from three Hamilton stakeholders is aiming to help renters obtain their first mortgage.
Kiwanis Homes, the City of Hamilton and the Hamilton Community Foundation are pooling resources to help people in the municipality to own the homes they’re renting.
Brian Sibley, executive director with Hamilton East Kiwanis Non-profit Homes, says the partners are investing about $1 million each in a mortgage pool helping households with incomes of around $95,000 a year to purchase residences around $500,000.
“The pilot project is aiming at about 20 units to start with,” Sibley told 900 CHML’s Good Morning Hamilton.
“We have a pool of about 200 homes, but what we want to do is start small.”
The idea is to begin with an initial group to “iron out the difficulties” to see if the program “has legs” for the next decade or so.
Under the initiative, qualified renters would be able to tap into cash for a down payment to complete a purchase before paying the money back in time for others to do the same.
Hamilton Community Foundation president and CEO Terry Cooke says the program is aimed at tenants of social housing or people on that wait-list to become first-time homebuyers who generally can’t come up with a down payment.