By providing the education and the tools for people to start moving in the direction of homeownership, there is a broader impact on the community and its organizations and businesses. Corwyn gives a big picture example of the effect home ownership could have on a church community: Let's talk about it from a church perspective. If the members of my church are building and creating a legacy, then what does that do? That puts us in a situation where we're able to stabilize the congregation. Because sometimes…the congregation is a little bit more transient: They're renters. If they're renting here and their rent skyrockets in this part of town, they can no longer afford to live here, and they've got to move to another part of town. And if now it's more difficult for them to travel to that particular church, then you're going to lose the membership. I work for a lot of churches and a lot of church pastors directly. A conversation that we have oftentimes is the church is more than just you. You’ve got to serve the whole man. That man has spiritual needs, and he has financial and physical needs. You’ve got to service the whole man, which means that if the man is hungry, you’ve got to feed him. If the man needs help with his finances, you’ve got to give him some education to help him. When the church or a nonprofit is involved in this piece of the puzzle for municipalities, it helps them to stabilize and establish their tax base. If you have homeowners in the community now, they're not renters. The people that are fully invested in the communities are the ones who are supporting the community. That's who's paying the taxes, who's benefiting from the services, all that other stuff. It just makes for a better community. So, we work with some groups, church groups as well as municipalities, that create clusters of affordable housing so that they can work to improve the lives of their residents. That is huge. The Role of HOMEOWNERSHIP in Nurturing Communities and Supporting Local Business
Homeownership in a community is a stabilizing force to keep people in the community also and to help build up the local businesses. Corwyn explains that home ownership means that “people are vested:”
Most people, when they open a business, they open a business in a community they know and love, usually the community they live in. At that point in time, you get someone who buys a house, and then now they stabilize themselves, and they have this bright idea to open a restaurant, or the [business] idea is. But now they're invested in the community in several ways. It's amazing to watch. And that's the opportunity that people have leveraging real estate, real property….A tree will grow again, but dirt isn't growing anymore.
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