TCH: Grant Program Success Encourages Renters & Purchasers to Apply!

20 Nov TCH: Grant Program Success Encourages Renters & Purchasers to Apply!

Trust for Community Housing (TCH) welcomes support. Please visit TCH’s website: www.trustforcommunityhousing.org

For more information, please contact:Amy Levek, Executive Director, 970/708-7678 or amy@trustforcommunityhousing.org. Katherine Borsecnik, Board Chair, Katherine@trustforcommunityhousing.org

And go here for more on the initiative.

The Trust for Community Housing (TCH) understands how hard it is for some locals to secure their housing, especially in today’s real estate climate, where properties are selling, and rents are increasing. TCH hopes to make local employee’s transition into housing a little easier.

Are you a local worker and looking for help with the costs of securing a rental? The Trust for Community Housing’s Opportunity Fund grant program may be able to help you. The program has awarded 51 grants to date, enabling 102 locals to both purchase and cover rental deposits and other costs associated with getting into housing.

“It’s easier to reach locals who are buying homes since most of the banks and mortgage companies know about our program,” says Amy Levek, Executive Director of TCH. “It’s so much harder to reach renters, but we want them to know that they can apply, too.”

TCH’s grants are available for renters to deal with move-in costs like deposits, which can sometimes be substantial.

“The rental unit does not need to be deed-restricted, but the renter does need to qualify through the San Miguel Regional Housing Authority as an employee working in the region,” states Levek.

Grants are awarded to qualified workers in the region to help them achieve housing stability. They are designed to enable recipients to stay in the region, benefitting the family, their employer, and the local economy and community.

“Our grantees have included on-call employees, self-employed workers, artists, retail workers, small business owners, and library workers,” notes Levek.

In our current economy, even “affordable” housing can be hard – or even impossible – for employees to afford, due to relatively modest, but still daunting down payments and closing costs. The Housing Opportunity Fund addresses that part of the housing puzzle by providing grants to help qualified local employees actually get into housing:

“Our grantees are a cross-section of those who keep our community strong,” says Levek. “And I’m even more impressed by what most of them contribute to the community.”

TCH obtains references from grant applicants as well as information on financial need and employment history.

TCH is focusing on other projects as well, including working with owners of secondary units to encourage them to rent long term. TCH is also evaluating land throughout the region for partnerships to create more affordable housing.

Trust for Community Housing, more:

The Trust for Community Housing (TCH) was established as a grass-roots nonprofit (501-c-3) organization to make sure our community remains strong and vital by increasing resources available for affordable housing. TCH is the Telluride region’s only non-profit dedicated specifically to housing and is supported by a broad spectrum of full- and part-time residents who treasure what makes our shared home unique.

TCH’s mission is to preserve our community through increasing regional housing opportunities. Through collaboration with others, the non-profit Trust expands resources available for housing, helping to secure a diverse and vital community.