BLUEPRINT FOR THE AMERICAN DREAM
Federal and Local Partners Sign Agreement to Increase Minority Homeownership in West Central Florida

TAMPA - On Friday, August 22, 2003, at a ceremony held at the St. Petersburg Neighborhood Housing Services,
the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Tampa Field Office and more than a dozen local partners signed a Memorandum of Understanding to promote the President's Blueprint for the American Dream and increase homeownership for minorities in West Central Florida.

The partners include several other local organizations which promote affordable housing opportunities.

In June 2002 President George W. Bush announced an ambitious plan to help close the homeownership gap by increasing minority homeownership by 5.5 million families by 2010. He challenged the public and private sectors to work together to reach or exceed that goal. The result is the creation of an unprecedented public/private partnership - the Blueprint for the American Dream - that is tearing down barriers to minority homeownership and working to help millions of minority families reap the economic benefits of homeownership.

Nationally, there are two dozen member groups in the Blueprint Partnership, and they bring together the individual strengths of government, the real estate and mortgage finance industry, affordable housing groups and advocacy organizations.

Working together, the Blueprint Partners identified four key areas they should focus on to increase minority homeownership, and made specific commitments to take action in one or more Pathways to Homeownership:

• homeownership education and housing counseling;
• increasing the supply of affordable homes;
• giving families new options for upfront funds like the downpayment; and
• improving mortgage lending by increasing funds for affordable loans and redoubling efforts to root out illegal discrimination.

Through this memorandum of understanding HUD and its local partners are commemorating our unified acceptance
of the President's challenge to increase the minority nationwide homeowner rate by 5.5 million by 2010.

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