National Home Ownership Month: “Preserving the Dream”

In recognition of National Home Ownership Month, the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) chose “Preserving the Dream” as the theme for the month-long acknowledgment of the critical role owning a home plays in communities across America. A press release from HUD noted that this recognition reinforces the Obama Administration’s work to build a more durable and fair housing finance system that promotes the American Dream of homeownership while preventing the unsustainable forms of home purchase that fueled the recent housing crisis.

By early 2009, with the nation’s housing market in “free-fall,” many families and individuals were left in desperate situations, trapped and worried about their mortgages. Today, the housing market is in recovery. Homeowner equity is more than $10 trillion and families throughout America are on pace to purchase more than five million homes this year.

According to HUD Secretary Shaun Donavan, “Homeownership Month is a time to reaffirm the important role that “home” plays for our families and the neighborhoods where they live.” The Secretary stated: “Owning a home has historically been the principal vehicle for Americans to build equity, start businesses, put kids through college, and retire with comfort and dignity. After all we’ve been through, we must stand by an institution that has helped build our nation’s middle class.”

HUD’s mission is to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all. HUD is working to strengthen the housing market to bolster the economy and protect consumers; meet the need for quality affordable rental homes; utilize housing as a platform for improving quality of life; build inclusive and sustainable communities free from discrimination, and transform the way HUD does business.

Neighborhood Home Solutions (NHS) is a HUD-approved nonprofit housing counseling organization and will be one of the more than twenty-five exhibitors at the annual Home Ownership for People Everywhere Expo. This free Expo will be held on Saturday, June 28, from 8:15 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.  at Raymond James Financial Center, 800 Carillon Parkway, Tower 4, in St. Petersburg.

NHS has been serving the community for almost 34 years and remains committed to “Preserving the Dream.” Please visit the NHS website at www.nhsfl.org or call the office at 727-821-6897. If you feel like just stopping by to learn more about the difference you can make in your own life and in the life of your community, our address is 1600 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St. S., St. Petersburg.

NHS is a 501 (c) (3) HUD-approved nonprofit housing counseling organization. Services are provided free of charge. Partners include the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), HomeFree USA, Florida Housing Finance Corporation, Florida Hardest-Hit Fund, Pinellas County Community Development, and the City of St. Petersburg. A source for this article was the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.