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Page A 6
March 30, 2005
H ousing
HOST Helps With Home Buying
Larry Hauth stands in front of his house that was made afford-
able to him through HOST Development.
photos provided by L i
A lligoou /H O ST
D evelopment
Housing grant supports
low-income purchase
E stablished in 1989, HOST
also has built and sold m ore
than 200 affordable hom es in
Portland. It reaches out to
hom ebuyers and groups, in ­
The funds will support the cluding A frican A m ericans
M ore low- and m oderate-
incom e Oregon residents will Good Deeds by the HOST and H ispanics, who tradition­
be able to finally buy a per­ pro g ram , w hich o rg a n iz e s ally not ow ned hom es. HOST
m anent home o f their own, hom eow nership classes and hom eow ners agree to take a
thanks to a $ 10,000 grant from provides down paym ent and hom eow ner class, keep their
the W ells F arg o H o using closing cost assistance to low- hom e in good condition, vol­
m o d e r a te - in c o m e unteer for 50 hours annually
Foundation to the Portland an d
nonprofit agency Home O w n­ hom ebuyers throughout O r­ to the com m unity, and keep
their hom e ow ner-occupied.
egon.
ership a Street at a Time.
Chakila Scott and her son enjoy sitting on the front porch of a home made possible
for them through HOST Development.
“Increasing the number of
permanent homeowners helps
stabilize families and improves
the communities they live in,”
said Ted Salter, HO ST’S devel­
opment director. “This grant
from Wells Fargo will enable us
to market our classes and finan­
cial assistance program through­
out Oregon.”
Wells Fargo Home Mortgage
is the nation’s top retail lender,
the top lender to both low- to
m oderate-incom e custom ers
and ethnic minorities and one of
the country’s leading servicers
o f home mortgages.
“The Wells Fargo Housing
Foundation was created to pro­
vide perm anent solutions to
homeownership needs in Wells
F argo com m unities natio n ­
wide,” said Dennis McAuliffe,
a branch sales m anager for
Wells Fargo Home Mortgage in
Oregon. “Oregon housing is
among the least affordable in
the nation. We partner with or­
ganizations such as HOST that
share our commitment to help­
ing more o f our community
members obtain a permanent
home.”
M ore in fo rm a tio n about
HOST services can be obtained
by calling 503 331-1752.
Grow Your Small Business
with the City of Portland Rental Prices Hurt Poor
Are you a small business owner?
Are you interested in doing business
with the City o f Portland?
The City o f Portland is expanding contracting
opportunities fo r small businesses in the Professional,
Technical, and Expert Services Fields. These include
areas such as architecture and engineering, information
technology, training and meeting facilitation, marketing,
outreach and graphic design, finance and insurance.
Minority, women and emerging small business owners
are encouraged to contact us, as well as to certify their
businesses with the State o f Oregon.
To learn about small business
contracting opportunities, contact:
Gregory J. Wolley, Program Coordinator
Professional Services
Marketing and Outreach
City of Portland
Bureau of Purchases
(503)823-6860
www.portlandonline.com/omf/purchases
(AP) — Most Americans who
rely on just a full-time job
earning the federal mini­
mum wage cannot af­
ford the rent and utili­
ties on a one- or two-
bed ro o m a p a rt­
ment, an advocacy
group on low-in-
come housing re­
port.
For a two-bed-
room rental alone,
the typical worker
m ust earn at least
$ 15.37 an hour - nearly
three tim es the federal
minimum wage, the National
Low Income Housing Coalition
said in its annual “Out of Reach” report.
That figure assumes that a family spends no
more than 30 percent o f its gross income on rent
and utilities - anything more is generally consid-
House Prices Rise 11.2 Percent
(AP) — U.S. house prices
rose in 2004 at the fastest clip in
25 years, despite a slowdown in
the last three months o f the
y ear, a c c o rd in g to the
g o v ern m en t’s m ost closely
watched barometer of the hous­
ing boom.
The average price of a single­
family home financed through
Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac
climbed 11.2 percent over the
Advertise w ith diversity in
course of 2004, the highest an­
nual rate since 1979, federal
regulators said in their quarterly
House Price Index report. The
growth rate for the fourth quar­
ter, however, was just 1.7 per­
cent - barely a third of the rate
for the previous three months.
The report, released March 2
by the Office of Federal Housing
Enterprise Oversight, provided
little evidence of a pronounced
111,1I J o r t k t n b ( O b s e r v e r
Call 50? 2SS-OO3? ad support landobscrver.com
-
ered unaffordable by the govern­
ment.
Yet many poor Ameri­
cans are paying more
than they can afford
because w age in­
c re a s e s h a v e n ’t
kept up with in­
creases in rent and
u tilitie s ,
said
Danilo Pelletiere,
the coalition’s re­
search director.
The median hourly
wage in the United
States is about $ 14, and
more than one-quarter of
the population earns less than
$ 10 an hour, the report said.
In addition, government spending on
Section 8 rental vouchers, which helps 2 million
Americans - mainly poor - pay rent hasn’t kept
up with demand.
slowdown. The fourth-quarter
slowdown, forexample, followed
what the office described as an
“exceptionally large" increase in
the third quarter.
“This report reflects a slow ­
ing of the trem endous house-
price appreciation w e'v e seen
recently, but it is still growing
at a s tro n g p a c e ,” sa id
Arm ando Falcon, O F H E O ’s
director.