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Non-profit helps Queens residents keep their homes

Non-profit helps Queens residents keep their homes
Photo by Rich Bockmann
By Rich Bockmann

Like so many in southeast Queens, Juanita Oliva’s family used their home to make a better future for themselves.

By 1983, Oliva’s mother had paid off her mortgage on the house on a quiet street in Addisleigh Park.

“It’s a lovely home on a dead end,” Oliva said. “She owned it free and clear. She was an incredibly giving person and her sister had a son who wanted to attend the Valley Forge Military Academy, so my mother made arrangements with her sister where, if she took out a second mortgage on the home, her sister would pay the monthly payments.”

Oliva took responsibility for the mortgage when her mother died five years ago, and when her aunt died she found herself paying $1,200 a month on the remainder of the mortgage.

“Unfortunately, I got laid off in February 2012, almost at the end of paying off the mortgage,” she said.

Oliva could not keep her head above water with her part-time job alone, but after being awarded a $25,000 loan from a city program she was left with just $689 to pay off the mortgage.

“I was so shocked. It was an incredible journey this past year,” she said. “To be so concerned about losing your family’s home when you’re so close to paying it off and to find this incredible support system out there, that’s an incredible blessing.”

Oliva received a loan from the city Department of Housing’s Mortgage Assistance Program, which provides distressed homeowners with interest-free, deferred-repayment loans to help them achieve sustainable mortgages.

“We began in January 2011 and we’re looking to increase the volume because clearly there’s a great need for the money,” said Matthew Hassett, director of lending at the nonprofit Center for NYC Neighborhoods, which administers the program for the city.

Working with nonprofit housing counselors such as Chhaya CDC in Jackson Heights or Neighborhood Housing Services of Jamaica, homeowners at risk of foreclosure use the MAP funds — up to $25,000 — to pay down a portion of the principal on their loan or to pay off either arrears or a second mortgage.

The MAP loan carries zero interest and no monthly payments and becomes due once the homeowner refinances, pays off an existing loan or sells the house.

Like Oliva, Carol Worrell found herself behind on her mortgage due to an unforeseen event.

Worrell bought her Richmond Hill home in 1999, but in May 2007 she hurt her back after she fell in the lab where she worked as a hematologist.

“Because I fell and hurt myself on the job I had to be home on disability not getting a salary,” she said.

By the time she went through her second surgery in 2011, she had run through all of her savings, but the MAP loan helped her get back on her feet.

“It made [the mortgage] manageable,” she said.

Of the 86 loans CNYCN has approved throughout the city, 23 have been in Queens. Hassett said there are certain qualifications homeowners must meet and anyone interested in more information should contact one of the center’s nonprofit partners, which also include Queens Legal Services and the Margaret Community Corp. in Far Rockaway.

For more information, contact CNYCN’s call center at 646-786-0888 or call 311.

Reach reporter Rich Bockmann by e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at 718-260-4574.