Habitat state director Gina Leckron says homeownership isn’t just a roof over your head, but a path out of poverty:
A single-minded focus on creating more homeowners helped lead to the foreclosure crisis a decade ago. Leckron says some people have taken the wrong lesson from that bubble to conclude low-income people shouldn’t own homes. She says what’s really needed are affordable loan terms, and extra effort to make sure buyers understand what they’re signing. She boasts the foreclosure rate in Indiana on Habitat’s zero-interest mortgages is just two-percent.
Habitat will build 217 homes this year, in 75 of Indiana’s 92 counties. About half of them are already in progress or will start construction this month.
June is National Homeownership Month, and coincides with the start of the busiest home-buying season, as the end of the school year leaves families freer to pack up and move.
