Housing Help for Orange County Teachers Celebrated
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PR-0105
February 23, 2001
CONTACTS:
Ken Domer 714.480.2990
Colleen Haggerty
Fannie Mae 626.396.5225
California State
Treasurer Philip Angelides, State Senator Joseph Dunn,
Assemblyman Lou Correa, local officials and representatives
from Fannie Mae “Welcome Home” first teacher
home purchase
(Santa Ana, CA) –
Monte Vista Elementary School teacher Emily Benavides
and her husband David were welcomed into their new home
today by California State Treasurer Philip Angelides as
one of the first borrowers through a new homeownership
incentive program for Orange County teachers. The “Extra
Credit Teacher Home Purchase Program” offers reduced
rate mortgages and $7,500 in down payment assistance to
help teachers, principals, and assistant principals purchase
homes in the high-cost Orange County housing market as
incentive to continue teaching in local low-performing
schools. Joining the Benavides and Treasurer Angelides
at the new home on South Daisy Street were State Senator
and Chair of the Senate Housing Committee, Joseph Dunn,
Assemblyman Lou Correa, Housing & Community Development
Director Paula Burrier-Lund, and representatives from
the Southern California Home Financing Authority (SCHFA)
and Fannie Mae (FNM/NYSE), the nation’s largest source
of financing for home mortgages.
The Extra Credit Teacher Home Purchase Program was created
as an incentive to help recruit and retain credentialed
public school teachers, principals, and assistant principals
at low-performing schools. State Treasurer Philip Angelides
proposed the program, which received approval by the California
Debt Limit Allocation Committee in September 2000. The
state-wide program is funded for $150 million over four
years and can be combined with additional housing incentives
by participating local governments to further leverage
resources to help teachers afford to purchase homes in
the communities where they teach.
“This program helps to address two critical needs
in our State - the need to provide meaningful incentives
for qualified teachers to take on the challenges of teaching
where the need is greatest, and the need to increase homeownership
opportunities for an important segment of California’s
working population that is finding itself increasingly
priced out of the State’s housing market,” stated
State Treasurer Philip Angelides.
To help finance the Extra Credit Teacher Home Purchase
Program in Southern California, Fannie Mae purchased $14.2
million in single family mortgage revenue bonds from SCHFA,
a joint powers authority between the Counties of Orange
and Los Angeles. The bond proceeds provide reduced rate
mortgages and down payment assistance for the Extra Credit
Teacher Home Purchase Program. Approximately $7 million
of these funds are available to Orange County teachers.
Specific homeownership incentives provided through the
program include:
Reduced Rate Mortgages – eligible teachers
and principals can receive financing for 30-year fixed-rate
mortgages with an interest rate as low as 7.2 percent
with a first year buy-down rate of 6.2 percent.
Forgivable Down Payment Assistance – eligible
teaches and principals will receive a $7,500 loan
to help pay for down payment costs. This loan is forgivable
after completing five-years of teaching in the low-performing
school.
"As the local housing market tightens, we need to
strategically leverage public and private resources to
help ensure teachers and other working families are not
priced out of living in Orange County. Fannie Mae's purchase
of these mortgage revenue bonds is a valuable tool for
local lenders and municipalities to do this," said
Barbara Zeidman, director of Fannie Mae's "House
Orange County" investment plan, a five-year, $6 billion
effort by the company to help 60,000 Orange County families
obtain affordable housing by 2004.
To be eligible for the Extra Credit Teacher Home Purchase
Program, teachers, principals, and assistant principals
agree to serve in a K-12 grade public Orange County school
ranked in the bottom 30 percent based on statewide testing
scores. Borrowers must be first time home buyers, earning
no more than 120 percent of the area median income ($71,765
for a one-to-two person household, $82,414 for a household
with three or more).
"The Orange County Board of Supervisors has made
affordable housing a top priority and the Extra Credit
Teacher Home Purchase Program is another step in making
homes affordable to the hard working teachers, principals,
and assistant principals who would otherwise be priced
out of the Orange County market,” stated Paula Burrier-Lund,
H&CD Director.The first teacher in Orange County to
actually close escrow and move-in is Monte Vista Elementary
School Teacher Emily Benavides and her husband David,
a Youth Minister with the Non-Profit Hispanic Ministry
Center. A graduate of Biola University, Emily has taught
fourth grade at Monte Vista for two years and her new
home is only two blocks away from the school. The couple
formerly rented an apartment in the neighborhood and decided
to permanently locate in Santa Ana to continue their community
involvement and stay close to Emily’s school.
“As a former educator myself, I know the importance
of attracting and retaining qualified teachers to serve
in schools with the greatest need,” stated Cynthia
P. Coad, Chair of the Orange County Board of Supervisors.
“To gain qualified teachers and provide them the
means to live in Orange County through the Extra Credit
Program is a great success and a worthy accomplishment."
Interested teachers can learn more about the Extra Credit
Teacher Home Purchase Program and receive a list of eligible
low-performing schools in Orange County on the internet,
at http://www.treasurer.ca.gov/csfa/extracredit
or http://www.ochousing.org.
The Extra Credit Teacher Home Purchase Program mortgages
are available through participating lenders.
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