2000 Best Practice Awards

2000-2464 Memorandum of Agreement with Orange County Community Partnership Office of the U.S. Census Bureau

On December 16th, 1999, an Agreement was witnessed by Rep. Loretta Sanchez, and signed by both John Reed of the Census Los Angeles Regional Office, and the Santa Ana Community Builders Office. In order to complement the efforts of the Census Bureau in Orange County, California, the HUD Community Builders outreached to HUD grantees, section 8 voucher recipients, the homeless, welfare to work participants, section 8 HUD assisted apartment managers, teachers, and local housing authorities.

2000-2471 Torres Martinez Mobile Home Park Development Project

Affordable, safe and sanitary housing is difficult to find in the Coachella Valley, especially within the tribal lands.The development of a 330 unit mobile home park to be constructed under local, county, state and federal requirements will benefit hundreds of families currently living in very substandard housing conditions. This development will also enhance the quality of life that people need in order to prosper as home owners. The development will facilitate tremendous economic development opportunities for the Torres Martinez Tribe that currently does not exist.

Through the use of HUD funds via a Rural NOFA, a contribution of $750,000 from the County to assist on common area development, and the contribution of $750,000 dollars from the USDA for the development of water and sewer infrastructure, the Torres Martinez Tribe can leverage these funds to obtain the necessary construction funds for said development, including family oriented common areas. This development will facilitate quality housing and affordable rates for hundreds of families that are facing displacement of substandard housing units located within the Coachella Valley as a result of code enforcement citations by the County of Riverside.

2000-2437 Coachella Valley Farm Worker Housing Application

Working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the University of California Riverside, the Community Builder was able to coordinate and facilitate the use of VISTA and AmeriCorps Volunteers to accept loan applications in Spanish and English for Farm Workers facing possible displacement from their mobile homes as a result of code enforcement violations and citations. Volunteers worked exclusively on two Saturdays per month from January to June 2000. Without the use of volunteers, hundreds of Farm Worker Families could not have been able to take advantage of loan programs being offered by the USDA for home ownership opportunities.

2000-2460 City of Coachella Housing Development

The City of Coachella entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the County of Riverside and USDA to build 44 single family detached housing units for very low income farm worker families. The City committed $500,000 dollars to assist in the acquisition of land and to provide the necessary public infrastructure to enable the development to go forward. Low Income Farm Worker families, facing displacement as a result of code enforcement public safety citations will become home owners as a result of this project.

The City's infusion of dollars allows the County to participate by adding $1.8 million in HOME funds as silent secondary financing that allows the interest rates to be subsidized. USDA allows the take out financing or permanent financing to be provided on a 60/40% split thus allowing home interest loans to be provided at a 1% interest rate for a 33 year loan repayment. The County's secondary financing is provided initially as a loan but becomes a grant after the home buyers reside in the residents for 10 years. The City's funds become a grant to allow the cost of construction to be reduced to a level that allows for low cost housing to be developed without short cutting quality of construction or reducing prevailing housing values.

2000-2809 San Bernardino City ARR Program

The San Bernardino City Acquisition, Rehab and Resale (ARR) program purchases HUD single family properties from the direct sales program. The properties are rehabilitated to meet or exceed local, state, federal building codes. These homes are then sold to first time, low/mod income, buyers who have completed HUDs Homebuyers Educational Learning Program (HELP). These buyers benefit from a reduction in their Mortgage Interest Premium if the property is FHA insured. Since the inception of the HUD Direct Sales Program, the ARR program has purchased over 200 properties, of which over 60 have already been rehabilitated and sold to new first time buyers.

2000-1532 Census 2000 Outreach

There are two aspects to the Census 2000 Outreach program- "Reaching for your dreams – Census 2000" and "Census 2000 – Complete Count Committee". These outreach workshops were geared toward underserved groups. They were meant to disseminate information on Fair Housing laws and housing dispute resolution services, as well as the need to respond to the 2000 Census.

2000-3140 After School Arts

The Arts and Culture Division of the City of Santa Ana has developed three After School Arts Centers (Bowers Kidseum, Heninger Elementary School and Madison Elementary School). The varied curriculum consists of visual art, dance, music, piano, storytelling and theatre classes. Classes occur from 2:30-5:00pm daily. We serve from 40 to 110 students per site. These after school programs are a huge success! By evaluating our pre and post-tests we have seen a 35% improvement in our specific areas of study. Additional strides have been made in student behavior, attendance and homework completion.

2000-1180 203K Industry Outreach utilizing CDBG, HOME funds

There is a tremendous need to revitalization America’s housing stock by empowering communities through neighborhood revitalization while expanding homeownership opportunities. In response, the Santa Ana HOC has held FHA Outreach Seminars to present/promote 203K usage in conjunction with CPD and utilization of CDBG programs. By increasing the knowledge base and usage of HUD’s 203K program, assisting in building / solidifying relationships with HUD’s industry partners, the Seminars have resulted in an increased usage of 203K program as interest rates have increased. The Seminars have also assisted FHA in increasing homeownership while improving interdivisional working relationships at HUD.

2000-1266 California Association of Mortgage Brokers (CAMB) Annual State Convention

The California Association of Mortgage Brokers (CAMB) will be holding an annual convention to discuss their concerns regarding new homebuilder's in-house lenders CBA's on July 20, 2000, between 2:00 P.M. to 3:30 P.M. at the Anaheim Marriott Hotel.

2000-1220 PUD Monitoring Plan for Quality Assurance of HUD Contractors

The Processing & Underwriting Division of the Santa Ana Homeownership Center developed a uniform process to evaluate by meaningfully quantifying the results of HUD Contractors performing work for the Center. By systematically quantifying the results of HUD contractors and ranking performance results, the Center has avoided continually awarding contracts to poor performers. This will enable HUD staff to be more productive on loan reviews and will decrease the amount of contractor reviews performed.

2000-3021 Hud-10 Calculator

A software calculator that analyzes HUD-10 settlement statements. This software allows the user to plug in entries from a settlement statement and determine the allowable and non allowable charges. This tool is useful in analyzing the activities of non profit agencies, mortgagors and other single family program participants.

2000-1521 Fair Lending Conference 2000

The Fair Housing Council of Riverside County California presented a one day conference on Fair Lending on April 29, 2000. The conference focused on home buyers education, predatory lending practices, fair housing regulations and community collaboration. The conference was designed to bring together the audience which included consumers, lenders, Realtors, community and civil rights organizations, public officials, mortgage bankers and businesses for the purpose of gaining knowledge and exchanging ideas on how to improve mortgage lending opportunities for consumers through education.

2000-1438 Community Housing Resource Center

The Community Housing Resource Center (CHRC) promotes homeownership through education and counseling assistance to first time homebuyers by working in partnership with the Columbia Non-Profit Housing to provide clients with deferred second mortgages that can be used as down payments.

2000-1193 Collaboration Roundtable

This project provides a forum for Wholesale Lenders to meet and discuss collectively and effectively on methods to eliminate fraud in correspondent lending. QC-MAC (Quality Control Management Assurance Corporation) and the Affinity Corporation will host the initial meeting at the Los Angeles Airport Marriott Hotel on June 21, 2000 from 9:00 A.M. to 11:30 A.M.

2000-1435 Santa Ana Homeownership Center Website with Chatrooms

The Santa Ana Homeownership Center website with chatrooms has an abundance of information about Single Family Housing programs on the internet. The chatrooms allow for exchange of technical information between HUD's industry partners and customers. The website is simple enough, and the download time short enough, that housing information is available to customers with low-end computers with slower modems.

2000-1417 Santa Ana Homeownership Center Hotline Complaint Tracking System

The Santa Ana Homeownership Center (SAHOC) receives Hotline complaints from Headquaters for processing and investigation. The Santa Ana HOC Hotline Complaint Tracking Log was developed to provide a systematic overview of these Hotline complaints. The Log summarizes all the SAHOC complaint allegations by using the Excel software application. The Hotline complaints are sorted by the applicable program areas and can be expeditiously assigned to the appropriate managers for action. The SAHOC managers are provided copies of the Log for their management purposes in the handling of the pending Hotline complaints. Upon completed investigation, the SAHOC processes the results of final resolutions by having the assigned investigator route to the assigned manager and then to the SAHOC Hotline complaints coordinator for forwarding to Headquarters by e-mail transmission.

2000-1276 Arizona Lenders Outreach Committee

To disseminate and share current initiatives with industry participants and develop a good working relationship that will enable HUD to increase it’s Single Family Lending volumes and initiatives, quarterly meetings have been held jointly by HUD, BIA-AZ, AZ-MBA, and Outstationed HOC. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss issues relating to new construction, projects, reciprocity, and new initiatives. As a result, the meeting has Improved the working relationships with the following groups: VA, CA-BIA, HUD approved mortgagees, and Lenders. It has also resulted in increased usage of FHA Single Family programs.

2000-1264 Subdivision/New Construction Industry Group

To disseminate and share current initiatives with industry participants and develop a good working relationship that will enable HUD to increase it’s Single Family Lending volumes and initiatives, quarterly meetings have been held jointly by HUD, VA, BIA-California, and Lenders. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss issues relating to new construction, projects, reciprocity, and new initiatives. As a result, the meeting has improved the working relationships with the following groups: VA, CA-BIA, HUD approved mortgagees, and lenders. It has also resulted in increased usage of FHA Single Family programs.

Content Archived: April 20, 2011