Partnership with Wells Fargo to Rehabilitate Vacant, Foreclosed Home

We partnered with volunteers from Wells Fargo from March 25th through March 29th to rehabilitate a vacant, foreclosed home through our Real Estate Owned (REO) program.  This home was donated to Rebuilding Together Twin Cities.  After the renovation project is complete, this home will be placed for sale and available to low to moderate-income individuals and families.   The proceeds from this sale will be invested back into our programs to help more low-income homeowners live in safe and healthy homes.

Thank you to Wells Fargo for volunteering to help rehabilitate this home!  Through this partnership, we are able to help stabilize neighborhoods that have been hit by the foreclosure crisis, enable low and moderate families to purchase safe and affordable homes, and preserve affordable homeownership for existing homeowners in need.

More about the Real Estate Owned Program:

Through our Real Estate Owned (REO) program, Rebuilding Together Twin Cities’ volunteers transform vacant foreclosed homes into safe, healthy and affordable housing for new homeowners.  Rebuilding Together Twin Cities works with banks that have an inventory of foreclosed homes and would like to return them to productive use to select a home for renovation and resale.  Once a home has been selected, we reach out to community and neighborhood partners and to larger community organizations that work with first-time homebuyers, such as the Minnesota Homeownership Center and area NeighborWorks affiliates, to make them aware of the opportunity and ask them to refer potential buyers.  After the repairs and improvements are complete, we work with a REALTOR® to market and sell the property.  To be eligible to purchase one of these rehabilitated properties, the buyer’s maximum household income must be under 120% of the area median income or less and the buyer must complete a homebuyer education class.  The buyer also must live in the home; it cannot be sold to an investor.  Proceeds from the sale of these properties are invested back into Rebuilding Together Twin Cities programs that help preserve affordable homeownership opportunities for low-income homeowners and preserve neighborhoods throughout the Twin Cities.

Focus On Safe at Home

Our Safe at Home volunteers have been hard at work over the last few months!  The Safe at Home program provides minor home safety and accessibility modifications focused on ensuring that seniors and individuals living with a disability can live independently and safely in their home.  We recently helped a homeowner named Arlene, a single mother of six who works for the University of Minnesota and is the primary caregiver for her mother who struggles with cancer.

Arlene and her family moved into their Shoreview home three years ago, and while she does the best she can, raising six children makes even simple upkeep difficult.  To add to that stress, Arlene’s mother has mobility issues as a result of her cancer.  Our Safe at Home volunteers installed several grab bars, which will help Arlene’s mother live more safely and independently in their home.

If you are interested in learning more about how you can help older adults and individuals living with a disability live more independently in their homes, please contact us at volunteerservices@rebuildingtogether-twincities.org.  To learn more about our eligibility requirements or to request an application to receive services through Safe at Home, please email us at SafeAtHome@rebuildingtogether-twincities.org.

AmeriCorps Week

March 9th – 17th was AmeriCorps Week, which is an opportunity to highlight the impact of AmeriCorps members on communities across the country.  As part of AmeriCorps Week, Tim Erkel, one of our AmeriCorps members, joined other members from the Rebuilding Together affiliate network in Durham, North Carolina for the Safe and Healthy Housing Summit from March 8th-10th.  This event was supported by ConocoPhillips and included 33 AmeriCorps members from 17 states.  The AmeriCorps members came together to identify housing-related risks for three low-income Durham families and develop and implement solutions to make their homes safer, healthier and more energy efficient.

Tim said of his experience, “The Safe and Healthy Housing Summit in North Carolina was a fantastic experience that presented a wonderful opportunity for me to bring knowledge and insight back to my affiliate and to do some good in a different community than my own. Learning about the house as a system and how improvements that we make affect it was enlightening, and going out in to the community and practicing those principles with my fellow CapacityCorps members was inspiring. I’m deeply honored to have been selected to attend the Summit.”

Rebuilding Together CapacityCorps is a National Direct AmeriCorps program with 65 full-time members serving at 35 local affiliates in 20 states. Rebuilding Together AmeriCorps members build the capacity of Rebuilding Together programs so that they become sustainable, effective and efficient in helping additional low-income homeowners in need. As developing housing preservation leaders, these AmeriCorps members serve essential roles in building the capacity of their host sites in areas such as recruiting and managing volunteers, performing direct home repairs, building community partnerships, and creating new programs.