The Hurricane Katrina recovery effort in New Orleans took a giant leap
forward this month with the announcement of “New
Era,” the largest workforce housing
initiative for victims of Hurricane Katrina to date. The New Era project
consists of more than 315 one, two and three bedroom homes priced
starting at $72,000. The initiative, including hard-to-obtain financing
for working families, is led by CityView Executive Chairman Henry
G. Cisneros, New Orleans real estate developer Stewart Juneau, CEO of leTriomphe
Property Group, LLC, and Michael Wojciechowski, head of
California-based Our Castle Homes, LLC, one of the nation’s
most innovative developers of housing for America’s
workforce. Homeowner financing for the New Era project is
provided by the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA).
“This is a new era for families of New Orleans
who want to come back home and work and restore themselves to
homeownership, or move up to homeownership,”
said CityView Executive Chairman and former U.S. Secretary of Housing
and Urban Development Cisneros. “This is the
ideal way to build an American middle class, and provide a way to
achieve the American dream for working families in this area.”
Stewart Juneau of leTriomphe Property Group, LLC, who redeveloped
the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in downtown New Orleans, is the owner of the
320-unit The Gates on Manhattan, a former apartment complex that has
been converted into homes for working families selling for between
$72,000 and $108,000. The project’s
development group includes leTriomphe; Cisneros’
California-based real estate investment firm CityView; Our
Castle Homes, a for-profit developer of affordable housing; and American
Sunrise Communities, a Los Angeles-based non-profit that was also
founded by Cisneros to help first-time homebuyers.
“We first offered these units for sale in May
of last year and then were hit with the housing finance crisis,”
said leTriomphe CEO Stewart Juneau. “We have
spent almost a year trying to convince banks and other lenders to
provide loans to people in our area with less-than-perfect credit scores.”
The NACA solution allows home buyers who don’t
have ideal credit but do have a stable source of income to lease their
home for up to 18 months while they repair any credit issues, and then
convert the lease into a no down payment, 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at
one percentage point below prime rate. American Sunrise Communities will
also offer credit counseling to residents of The Gates on Manhattan.
While the New Era homeowners will have 18 months to work with
NACA to correct their credit problems, agency representatives expect
that most households will obtain mortgages in less time. New Era
participants’ lease payments will include a
reserve fund that they will own to help with their future homeownership
expenses such as repairs on their new homes and ‘rainy-day
funds’ in case of an emergency.
“Our Castle Homes’
mission is to instill in homeowners the pride of ownership that helps
build stable communities where people may co-exist and support each
other,” commented Our Castle Homes’
Wojciechowski. “That mission will be realized
in New Orleans with New Era. Not only will we be looking for
other opportunities to assist in the rebuilding of this great American
city, but will also encourage other developers to join with us in these
public/private partnerships that bring all of our resources to bear on
the city’s recovery.”
Carl Brown, one of the first residents of The Gates on Manhattan
participating in New Era commented that the program gives him a
chance to own his first home in an environment where he didn’t
believe that was possible.
“I know that banks aren’t
anxious to help people like me who had problems making a few payments on
time after the hurricane,” said Brown while
settling into his new three-bedroom home with his daughter and
granddaughter. “Because I’ll
be paying $830 a month instead of $1200 a month to rent somewhere, I
will be saving almost $4500 a year and building equity for myself and my
family.”
Information on participating in New Era, the Gates Homeownership Program
is available online at www.thegatesonmanhattan.com.
Applicants can also 504-362-9794 to get more information. The
Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America website is www.naca.com.
About LeTriomphe Property Group
LLC
LeTriomphe Property Group, L.L.C. (“LTPG”)
and its affiliates are Louisiana-based companies specializing in the
development, construction, and management of multi-family residential
housing, resort condominiums, retirement communities and hotels. Stewart
Juneau, principal of LeTriomphe Property along with his partners have
had extensive experience totalling almost 70 years in real estate sales,
development, acquisition, construction, construction management,
syndication, market feasibility studies, and property management. See www.ltpg.us
for more information about the company.
About CityView
CityView is a national institutional real estate investor based
in Los Angeles, California committed to funding developers and
homebuilders to develop the American dream. CityView’s
“Beyond Capital”
strategy provides a critical array of services such as site
identification and acquisition, design support, entitlement assistance,
insurance, innovative homebuyer financing programs, marketing strategies
and coordination with community and inter-governmental agencies.
CityView has experience with complicated deal-structures and distressed
sites. CityView has invested more than $725 million to build
quality, market-rate homes for working families in more than 30
communities across 12 states. CityView has offices in Los
Angeles, New York, Dallas, and San Antonio. www.cityview.com
About NACA
The Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America ("NACA") is a
non-profit, community advocacy and homeownership organization. NACA’s
primary goal is to build strong, healthy neighborhoods in urban and
rural areas nationwide through affordable homeownership. NACA has made
the dream of homeownership a reality for thousands of working people by
counseling them honestly and effectively, enabling even those with poor
credit to purchase a home or refinance a predatory loan with far better
terms than those provided even in the prime market. www.naca.com
About Our Castle Homes, LLC
Our Castle Homes, LLC was formed in 2003 to build a
business to create and provide affordable homeownership for a group that
is often overlooked – the below median income
working family. The goal is to pool their resources and experience with
those of local developers to turn that vision into the reality of
providing affordable homeownership to families that otherwise lack the
opportunity. www.ourcastlehomes.com
About American Sunrise Communities
Henry Cisneros and Joel Shine of CityView teamed with David Grunwald,
the former CEO of Los Angeles Family Housing in 2006 to form the
national non-profit American Sunrise Communities. Their mission is to
create a national model, leveraging public, private and non-profit
resources to facilitate large scale homeownership opportunities for
low-income and minority families excluded from the housing market. www.americansunrise.org
CityView
Forrest Beanum, 310-804-2591 (Cell) or
310-566-8718
(Office)
fbeanum@cityview.com