Habitat for Humanity Santa Cruz County welcomes all applications. Habitat does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, physical or mental limitations, family size, martial status, or age (except that the applicant must be legally able and competent to enter into a binding contract).
Basic Eligibility: Applicants must:
Be legal residents of the United States and at least one adult must be a US Citizen or have permanent legal residency status.
Live or work in Santa Cruz County.
Have a household income that does not exceed HUD income requirement for lower income households.
Commit to complete 500 hours of "sweat equity".
Basic Selection Criteria: An applicant family must meet three general criteria requirements:
Need for Housing: Our affiliate seeks to assist families who have the goal of becoming independent homeowners. The successful family must have a need for adequate housing as determined by Habitat for Humanity Santa Cruz County.
Ability to Pay: The family must have an ability to repay the Habitat home loan. Using factors such as a minimum income guideline, debt-to-income ratio, monthly payment consistency along with other factors, we can determine whether our applicants have the resources necessary to purchase housing from Habitat of Humanity. Proposed monthly payments will be approximately 1/3 of gross income, including mortgage, taxes, and home insurance.
Willingness to Partner: It is essential that "Sweat Equity" be agreed upon when applying for home ownership through Habitat. A contribution of 500 volunteer hours must be contracted for and completed prior to transferring ownership. Hours can be credited in numerous ways; office work, building, education classes, lunch prep, site cleanup and other activities.
Recipes for Financial Fitness Toolkit
The Recipes for Financial Fitness Toolkit is an online interactive learning program that educates users on seven subject areas:
Becoming Fiscally Fit
Controlling Finances
Credit Basics
Protecting My Money
Finding a Good Job
Getting an Education
Owning a Home
Who is this toolkit intended for?
This toolkit was created with Habitat affiliates in mind, to aid you as you help prepare partner families for the challenges of homeownership. The lessons in this toolkit, however, are good lessons for anyone who is looking for information on how to achieve financial fitness.
How can my affiliate use this toolkit? Affiliates can tailor the toolkit to the needs of a specific family. Families can start with the first topic and work their way through, or begin with the topic that is most important for them. Affiliates may consider using the lessons in this toolkit as a way for partner families to earn sweat equity hours. The lessons completed can be tracked by printing out the quizzes at the end of each section and keeping the completed quizzes on file.
How and why was this toolkit created? The Recipes for Financial Fitness Toolkit was created in response to requests from Habitat affiliates, eager for financial education resources that they can implement at the local level. The concept of a collection of topics - each with a useful learning recipe - was conceived by was inspired by affiliate focus groups who shared their insights on the financial challenges faced by Habitat families. The creation of this Recipes for Financial Fitness Toolkit was made possible by a generous donation from, and in collaboration with, the National Endowment for Financial Education.
How much does it cost? This financial education tool is available at no cost.
Who can use the toolkit? Anyone! NEFE has graciously donated this toolkit to Habitat for Humanity to aid us in our efforts to eliminate poverty housing from the earth. In that spirit, Habitat is making it available via our public Web site, www.habitat.org, to anyone who can benefit from it.
