There is a growing list of strategies being used to end generational poverty on the Mid-Shore, but one of the best is owning your own home.
Beyond the fundamental purpose of providing an affordable and safe place for young families to live, homeownership requires special skills that last a lifetime. These include successfully navigating a home mortgage loan process, achieving and maintaining a good credit score, or managing a monthly household budget.
Furthermore, the benefits don’t just improve the life of the new homeowner, but studies have proved that these essential life skills and financial literacy do indeed get passed to their children and grandchildren.
All of these factors substantially influenced the founders of the newly created Kent Attainable Housing based in Chestertown. Eager to replicate the programs of such successful organizations as Habitat for Humanity, Kent Attainable Housing grew out of the need to help primarily single mothers and their families in Kent County find a place to call their own.
That mission greatly appealed to the Women & Girls Fund and its board. And so much so that WGF was one of the first institutional donors to support the fledgling program with grants to help fund the sometimes complex administrative requirements and systems to help new home buyers.
In the Spy’s continuing series of celebrating the Women & Girls Fund 2oth Anniversary, we sat down with Kent Attainable Housing president Lani Seikaly and WGF board member Casey Davis Roche to learn more.
This video is approximately five minutes in length. For more information about Kent Attainable Housing please go here. For the Women & Girls Fund please go here.
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