When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist. - Archbishop Helder Camara
Success Stories
Betty Mason always dreamed big. As a longtime renter in northeast Portland, Betty took the first step to making her dream of homeownership come true in 2007. Today, she owns the single-level home of her dreams, close to parks, with lots of windows and a big porch, like she always wanted. Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives’ support for first-time homebuyers like Betty, along with...
Celena, a contractor for U.S. Postal Service, first came to NEDCO to join the Threshold program in June 2004. A single mother of six children, Celena began the lease purchase program in April 2005 and was able to purchase her home in Springfield in September2005.
In the letter she recently wrote to NEDCO expressing her gratitude for NEDCO’s help she wrote, “This program has helped my...
Hello. My name is Deborah A. Williams. I am a current member of the VIDA program and have just purchased my new home in Springfield as of 3/6/09. I have been diligently searching for my home for approximately eight months now. Wow, what a learning experience. All my patience and hard work of reaching my savings goal has helped me make my final purchase.
I am a single mother of four...
When ZIA Southwest Cuisine Restaurant opened its doors in downtown Corvallis, it was the culmination of many years of planning and hard work. Before opening the restaurant, co-owners Diego Irwin, his mother Kathleen Marie, and his brother Damian all took business classes through Willamette Neighborhood Housing Services’ (WNHS) Linn-Benton MicroBusiness Program. This experience helped them realize...
Don, a bartender as well as a produce department employee at Albertsons, joined the Threshold program in December 2004. He moved into his lease-purchase home in Eugene in April 2005 and in October 2005 he purchased his home.
“Buying a home was a life goal of mine; we didn’t get led a stray at NEDCO,” he said. “One of the most valuable parts of the Threshold program was when the guy from...
Jodi Martine is an HACC resident who lives in scattered site housing in Milwaukie and has supported herself and her five children working in the Calibration industry. In 2007 Jodi enrolled the IDA program and began making monthly deposits into her IDA matched savings account. For close to three years, every $1 that she saved into her IDA account was matched by $3. This February, Jodi reached...
Lidiya always knew she would go to college. In Ukraine where she grew up, her family never had that option and came to the United States to give her and her siblings a better life. For Lidiya, a better life meant going to college. Recognizing that education opens doors, she worked hard in high school and began her studies at Portland State University, pursuing a degree in human resources...
My name is Patricia Tarrillo. I am originally from Lima, Peru, and I would like to tell you the story of the dream of an immigrant, who like many others came to this country with grand ideas and a desire to achieve a better future.
I began working with aluminum in my country as a hobby, among family and friends, while I went to school to study architecture, but when I came here I...