January 21, 2015
Page 13
Vancouver
East County
Beaverton
Mississippi
Alberta
North Portland
Nelson Gani and his wife Jazmin and their three children stand in front of their new home with Cobi Jackson (left) of Wells Fargo and Dana ingram (right) of the non-
profit Portland Housing Center.
Down Payment Lifeline
Neighborhood LIFT
creates 259 new
homeowners
The New Year has turned 259 former rent-
ers into Portland homebuyers thanks to the
collaboration between Wells Fargo, the non-
profit Portland Housing Center, and
NeighborWorks America.
Over the course of 2014, Wells Fargo gave
$15,000 down payment assistance grants to
the homebuyers who qualified through the
bank’s NeighorhoodLIFT program. They
also received homebuyer education from the
Portland Housing Center.
Nelson and Jazmin Gani were among the
grant recipients. They were living with their
three children in an apartment complex they
managed in Portland when they heard about
the LIFT program.
The Ganis were among the hundreds of
local residents who attended a homebuying
event Wells Fargo held in December 2013 at
the Oregon Convention Center. They used
their grant to buy a house within walking
distance of their children's school.
"For us, coming from third world coun-
tries, owning a piece of that American pie is
a huge blessing," said Nelson, who immi-
grated from the Fuji Islands (Jazmin came
from Mexico). "It's always been a dream of
ours, a dream for our family that came here
from overseas. It's a big blessing."
Organizers had initially allocated enough
funds to help 227 families buy homes in
Portland. But the response was so huge,
Wells Fargo wound up increasing the num-
ber of grants.
"The Portland market proved one of the
most successful LIFT events to date," said
Tim Coy, a senior vice president with Wells
Fargo Home Mortgage. "From driving mar-
ket awareness to the overall support and
execution of the program, the Portland team
delivered. Customers attending the event
were well prepared and were able to quickly
find properties to purchase, resulting in the
fastest allocation of all LIFT dollars since the
program launched in 2012."
An impact report created by
NeighborWorks showed that 80 percent of
the grant recipients felt the education they
received will help them manage their finances
and sustain homeownership.
"We at the Portland Housing Center be-
lieve advancing homeownership is key to
financial security, balancing wealth inequi-
ties and neighborhood stability," said PHC
Executive Director Peg Malloy.
"We were young parents," said Nelson
Gani. "We were trying to work on things
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