June 18, 2003

No down payment mortgages, grants get working families into their own homes

By EILEEN ALT POWELL

Later this month, Maurice and Samantha Johnson will be moving out of a relative's house and into their own four-bedroom home.

The Johnsons were able to buy the house in the New York borough of Queens through a program that helped them get a mortgage with no down payment and no closing costs.

For thousands of Americans - especially young couples, low-income working families and immigrants - the biggest barrier to homeownership is their inability to save enough money for a down payment.

A number of nonprofit groups, community organizations and private companies are coming up with special grants and "no down payment" mortgages to help them over that hurdle.

Maurice Johnson, 27, who works in the insurance industry, got help from the Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America. He attended a NACA workshop, then worked with one of the group's counselors to reduce his debt and improve his credit score so he could get a NACA no down payment mortgage. His 30-year, fixed rate mortgage carries a manageable interest rate of 4.375 percent.

"They put you on a budget to make sure you're able to qualify for a house and can afford to handle the mortgage you're looking for," said Johnson, who has a 6-year-old son and a 1-1/2-year-old daughter.

NACA, a nonprofit group with offices around the United States, just got a $3 billion infusion from CitiMortgage, a subsidiary of Citigroup, to expand its no fee, no down payment mortgage program.

"The reality is that many working people can't save a lot because its costs so much to raise a family and live day-to-day," said NACA executive director Bruce Marks. "But they're a good risk. Working people will do whatever it takes to stay in a home."

Karen Dailey, 41, a freelance graphic artist, said NACA counseling and down payment help gave her the confidence to buy a cooperative apartment in New York.

"I had been looking, but it was discouraging because I worried I just couldn't afford it," Dailey said. "But I got a 30-year mortgage with payments I know are manageable."

No down payment mortgages are not just available through nonprofit groups. Conventional lenders are writing them, too.

Jef Kinney, a vice president at Fannie Mae, the Washington, D.C., company that buys and sells mortgages, said several programs have been started to help families who can't make the traditional 10 percent to 20 percent down payment.

Fannie Mae's "expanded approval" and "flex 100" programs cover mortgages up to 100 percent of the value of a home. People do have to come up with the equivalent of about 3 percent in cash toward closing costs, but that can be from a grant, Kinney said.

"We work through lenders all over the country, from banks with a national presence to local banks, savings and loans and mortgage bankers," Kinney said. He suggested that would-be borrowers "shouldn't be afraid to ask any lender if low or no down payment products are available."

Some lenders have come up with hybrid programs.

GMAC Mortgage, for example, offers what it calls a HomeStretch loan, and more than 6,800 have been written so far.

Richard A. Gillespie, GMAC Residential's chief marketing officer, said the way it works is that a family gets a Federal Housing Administration-insured mortgage to cover about 98 percent of the home's purchase price. GMAC then adds what amounts to a second mortgage - to cover the down payment and closing costs. The second mortgage is forgiven starting in the sixth year if the family has kept up its payments, he said.

"We're working on other products," Gillespie said. "One would be similar to HomeStretch but work with conventional mortgages ... and another will be geared to immigrant families."

The faith-based charity Nehemiah Corp. sponsors one of the nation's largest down payment assistance programs. It has provided down payment grants to 150,000 families over the past six years.

"A lot of people have moms and dad who can help with a down payment," said Nehemiah's president, Scott Syphax. "But there are hundreds of thousands of families whose moms and dad are not in a position to help out. Well, we can."

Buyers is "Coach George," the man who has dedicated the last three decades of his life to teaching 11- and 12-year olds how to snag a fly and swing a bat, even though he never played a single inning himself.

Thibodeaux, the youngest of nine children, said he grew up on a shrimp boat and never played baseball or any other organized sport.

The son of George and Julianne Thibodeaux is part Native American and grew up at a time when Indian children weren't afforded the same opportunities as their contemporaries.

Thibodeaux never attended school and is unable to read or write. His racial background meant he wasn't welcome in a classroom or many other places.

As such, he spent his days helping his father harvest oysters and catch fish to help support their large family.

His first exposure to baseball, Thibodeaux said, was through radio broadcasts.

When he moved to Houma as a young man, he had access to television, he said, which meant he could see the sport he could only hear before.

But he never thought of himself as a participant in the game until the age of 22, when he entered the world of coaching.

Thibodeaux said a co-worker at P&S Sales and Service, the air conditioning store where he is still employed, needed an assistant to help coach a Terrebonne Parish Recreation team in Dularge.

But before the first pitch of the season was thrown, the man told Thibodeaux he was being sent offshore. The new work schedule meant he needed someone to take over the team.

Thibodeaux said he was shocked at the thought because he considered himself a spectator with a limited grasp of the game.

"I didn't know nothing about baseball," he said of the long-ago conversation.

But he decided to give it a try with the help of seasoned coaches like Harold Castille, the man who today heads the Dularge recreation program.

"I learned the rules as I went," Thibodeaux said. "I couldn't read them, but I kept them in my mind."

He coached in Dularge for three years and then moved to Montegut when teams there had trouble finding coaches.

Eighteen years later he relocated again to east Houma, the place where he still coaches the Lafayette Woods Braves, a team of 11- and 12-year-old boys.

Bob DuBois, who runs the Lafayette Woods Park, calls Thibodeaux "Mr. Recreation."

"He loves kids, and he just loves baseball," DuBois said. "He does it strictly for the kids."

Thibodeaux, his fans say, cares more about the children who make up the team than he does about who wins and who loses.

"He's just a good man," said John Morgan, coordinator of the east Houma TPR program. "I think a lot of him."

Thibodeaux never married and has no children of his own but said he sees helping youngsters as his mission in life.

"I like to help them," he said. "I'll take any kid on my team, even the ones other coaches don't want, because I believe I can help them."

He estimates that nearly 500 boys have been on his team roster during his coaching career, some of them sons of boys he taught in the beginning.

"They are all my kids," Thibodeaux said. "I like to help them in any way I can."

Asked when he planned to retire from coaching, Thibodeaux laughed.

"That's what everybody asks me," he said. "They say you must love baseball or you're crazy."

He counts the years he has spent on the baseball diamond as precious and points to the graduation announcements and wedding invitations addressed to "Coach George" that arrive every year as proof that it has been time well spent.

"The truth is that I'm helping the kids, but they are helping me too," Thibodeaux said. "They keep me young and I'm going to keep going until I can't go no more."

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