Athanase Kabayiza and his wife Agnes Mukandayisenga dreamed of buying a home when they arrived in Arizona after tragic turmoil upended their lives then brought them together. They'd separately escaped the Rwandan genocide in 1994 by fleeing to the Central African Republic. That's where they met, married and had a son. When a civil war started there, they made their way to the U.S. and settled in Tucson.
As they worked to rebuild their lives, Kabayiza heard about an organization that "helps people transition if they have the idea to buy a home." The organization was the Primavera Foundation, a NeighborWorks network affiliate in Tucson that was participating in a down payment assistance program called LIFT or Let's Invest for Tomorrow.
LIFT, a national NeighborWorks America program that ran from 2012-2024, has helped about 26,000 people in 81 markets become new homeowners. It has provided $357 million in down payment assistance to individuals who completed education on the homebuying process. Of the new homeowners LIFT has created, 61% are low-income or earn less than 80% of the area median income, and 64% identify as non-white.
"Programs like LIFT make homeownership a reality," says Noelle Melton, vice president of homeownership programs and lending at NeighborWorks. "A lot of people could be homeowners and have equity and build wealth, but to get there, one component we really need to invest in is more down payment assistance and deeper housing counseling and financial coaching."
That's precisely what helped Kabayiza and his wife. Starting in 2012, the Kabayiza family completed required homebuyer education, saved money and worked to thoughtfully improve their credit scores. In 2014, they were approved for down payment assistance through the LIFT program and another initiative through the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco.
Without the assistance, it would have taken about 12 years to make that down payment, says Lupita Rodriguez, community engagement liaison at Primavera, who is proud of the impact her organization has made in Tucson. "We do whatever we can to help families succeed in purchasing their home," says Rodriguez. "The biggest way that they can succeed is the down payment assistance, because it lowers their payment, and they're more able to stay on top of not becoming delinquent."
Kabayiza and his wife purchased a one-level, two-bedroom home in Tucson. A home "helps us to be integrated in the American life and to be integrated in the community," Kabayiza says. When the couple had a second child – a daughter – they realized they needed more space. They put the home they purchased through LIFT on the market in 2022. It sold within a week.
Meanwhile, the family had already reached out to a contractor to design and build a two-story, three-bedroom home in Tucson's Littletown neighborhood. Kabayiza and Mukandayisenga live there with their two children and another youth they care for. The family got "quite a bit of equity" from selling the first home to use as a down payment on the new home, "so it was a win-win for them," Rodriguez says.
Kabayiza now has enough space to host family members he hasn't seen in 20 years. He hopes they'll visit soon. His wife's mother and sister are nearby and also worked with the Primavera Foundation to find their home. "We are happy because we live together in the same community," he says.
Kabayiza also helps other people in his community follow his family's path. "I show them. ‘We are going to do this. To do this, improve your credit score now so when you apply for a loan, you are going to get it,'" he says. "And sometimes I bring them to the bank and help open an account. And in six months they have already improved their credit score… They are not afraid to buy a home."
Improving capacity
LIFT had an obvious impact on the families who bought homes. But it also had an impact on the NeighborWorks organizations that helped them along the way. Through LIFT, NeighborWorks provided technical assistance and capacity building to help network organizations customize the program to include their local partners and offer support programs specific to their regions.
"We don't just deploy dollars," Melton says. "We deploy resources to community-based organizations in our network and help build their capacity. This gives these organizations the tools to create their own down payment programs with other partners for years to come, helping even more homebuyers in need of support."
In a sense, LIFT served as a launching point, setting NeighborWorks on a path to help staff and the network understand what they are capable of and how to layer down payment assistance with other financial support and resources. NeighborWorks uniquely has the capacity to run programs of this scope, reach and impact, especially with its network of nearly 250 organizations nationwide, and intends to continue investing in innovative partnerships to develop more programs in the future.
LIFT also served as a launching point for new services at NeighborWorks Home Partners, a network affiliate in St. Paul, Minnesota. When the LIFT Program was first available in the Twin Cities in 2012, NeighborWorks Home Partners collaborated with another network organization, providing counseling and education while the other organization offered the lending. The experience spurred an expansion of services for NeighborWorks Home Partners. "Seeing how impactful [lending] was and what a great program it was, we wanted to be in that space, so we built up our lending credentials, staff and infrastructure," CEO Jason Peterson says.
When LIFT was again available in the area in 2016, NeighborWorks Home Partners was poised to be the sole provider for down payment assistance. The organization had processed three down payment assistance loans in 2015. With the help of LIFT, it closed 123 in 2016 – and 327 the next year. When LIFT returned to the area for a third time in 2020, NeighborWorks Home Partners closed almost 400 down payment assistance loans. In recent years, it has processed about 300 annually and has staffed up significantly to help more first-time homebuyers.
"Each one of those 300 or 400 people is a story and a win," Peterson says. "An individual who now owns their own home, is gaining that equity, is building that wealth. Creating that generational wealth has stabilized their housing costs. We're very proud of that impact."
The organization is doing just as NeighborWorks' Melton hoped – partnering with the state and other organizations to continue providing down payment assistance in Minnesota. Due to NeighborWorks Home Partners' LIFT success, last year the State of Minnesota appropriated $100 million to create a statewide first generation down payment assistance program, which is administered by a network of CDFI and community lenders, including Neighborhood Home Partners. The assistance provided has a zero-interest loan, forgiven after five years, which supports wealth building for first-generation buyers. In addition, given their demonstrated experience, Neighborhood Home Partners received a $10 million appropriation to pilot a fee-based down payment program for buyers seeking Halal mortgage financing.
Melton has been glad to see the progress that has come from the program: Families moving into homes and network organizations ready and able to help them do it. "We are not just in the business of creating homeowners," she says. "We're in the business of creating communities."
