Grants to be available for housing equity
Building Blocks Together can award $10,000 to homebuyers
Grants of up to $10,000 will soon be provided for certain Black homebuyers in the Capital Region.
The Carl E. Touhey Foundation awarded $1 million to Building Blocks Together, a company that seeks to bring equity and wealth into marginalized communities through homeownership and investment education and opportunities. The award is part of the Restorative Housing Justice Fund, which supports homebuyers with costs such as down payments and closing costs.
Those who apply and are awarded a grant can receive up to $10,000 in Albany or up to $5,000 in other Capital Region cities.
“To date, through the Restorative Housing Justice Fund, we have been able to create 86 new African American homebuyers throughout the Capital Region,” Virginia Rawlins, president of Building Blocks Together, said in a press release. “In the ‘pandemic market,’ many of those buyers would not have been able to purchase their property without the RHJF.” Such an investment is particularly important in the aftermath of redlining, when federal officials drew red lines around certain neighborhoods they deemed too “hazardous” for investment in 1938. Almost a century after redlining, those neighborhoods have experienced neglect and disinvestment, and their residents — who are now predominantly Black — have been subject to lower quality of life, as well as fewer homeownership opportunities.
In Albany alone, 69 percent of white residents own homes but only 20 percent of Black residents do; the difference in median household income between
ership.”
Individuals must identify as African American or Black, be first-time homebuyers and purchase a property in the cities of Albany, Amsterdam, Schenectady, Rensselaer, Troy or Watervliet to qualify for the grant.
To learn more information go to https://www.buildingblockstogether.com/resources, or email info@buildingblockstogether.com.