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OAKLAND, CA – Sausal Creek Homes is hosting an open house/housewarming to celebrate East Bay Affordable Housing Week 2009 and welcome our new homeowners to the neighborhood. The Open House/Housewarming will be on Sunday, May 17, 2009 from 12 pm to 3 pm at 2464-2470 26th Avenue, Oakland, CA 94601. Sausal Creek Homes is a small community of new two- and three-bedroom single-family homes completed in 2008 by Home Place Initiatives (HPI), an affiliate of the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC). The homes are subsidized under the City of Oakland’s Affordable Homeownership Development Program (AHDP) to make homebuying a reality for first-time homebuyers with limited incomes.

The celebration will be an afternoon of activities to show the homes to affordable housing supporters, new homeowners and friends from the neighborhood. The homes were made possible through the support of Vice Mayor Ignacio De La Fuentes and he has been invited as part of the short ceremonies for the event from 1pm to 2pm. Of the seventeen homes, there are still two-bedroom homes three-bedroom homes available for sale. The home prices start at $195,000.

Creating homeownership opportunities for families in the Fruitvale

Sausal Creek Homes is located in East Oakland, just off of Fruitvale Avenue in a neighborhood where less than 40% of the housing units are owner occupied, compared with 43% for the city, and 66% for the nation. Approximately 71% of all households in the area are families and tend to be larger than households in the rest of the City of Oakland. The two- and three- bedroom homes will provide the first step for a new family or intergenerational household. The median family income in the neighborhood is less than $40,000.

Avoiding foreclosure and keeping the homes

With Sausal Creek Homes and future affordable homes, EBALDC aims to ensure that the dream of homeowners stays a reality and not a nightmare. In Oakland, there are few organizations building affordable housing for low to moderate income families. There are even fewer organizations that ensure the financial success of the new first-time homebuyers by offering homebuyers’ financial education through our asset development and financial literacy programs. EBALDC has also worked closely with Oakland Housing Authority to help Public Housing residents and Section 8 Tenant-Based Voucher holders take advantage of the opportunities of homeownership through their Section 8 Homeownership Voucher mortgage subsidy program. These homes offer low to median income homebuyers the opportunity to purchase an affordable home in a housing market where options for low-income homebuyers in a down economy have been reduced.

Sausal Creek Homes brings stability to the neighborhood as the homebuyers will become more invested in living in their neighborhood. For first-time homebuyers, the process of achieving homeownership is a complex one, as they face new financial and maintenance responsibilities. Before purchasing the homes, our homebuyers will be required to take a homeowner education class with one of the City of Oakland’s approved housing counseling agencies. Through these classes, the homebuyers will receive general credit and budget counseling, homeownership process education, maintenance and default protection education. They will gain an understanding of the skills required to be a homeowner as well as an understanding of the specific restrictions related to the purchase of a City-assisted unit. After they purchase their homes, the homeowners will receive post-purchase homebuyer counseling. They will also receive advice about the basic maintenance of their new homes through the first ten years of owning their home.

A Community of Seventeen Homes

Sausal Creek Homes was designed to create a tight-knit community of single family homes with proud homeowners. Each of the seventeen homes has private outdoor space (a deck or a yard) overlooking common areas. The homes come ready with washer and dryers, energy efficient hydronic heating, refrigerators and stoves to help first-time homebuyers transition into their new homes. In addition, the homes are secured with home security systems to help lower the cost of the new homeowners’ insurance.

Home Place Initiatives

EBALDC has built affordable housing in Oakland for over 30 years. Home Place Initiatives (HPI) was founded by EBALDC in 1996 to find innovative strategies to increase homeownership for low to moderate -income families, particularly in neighborhoods served by EBALDC. To date, over 95 single family homes have been acquired and built by HPI. The current project being completed is Sausal Creek Homes.

For more information about the homes, please contact Karoleen Feng, (510) 287-5353 ext 352.