NeighborWorks® - Newsroom - Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 20, 2003

CONTACTS:
Brad German, Freddie Mac
703-903-2437
Mark Burneko, NRC
202-220-2360

Freddie Mac Commits $2 Million to NeighborWorks® Initiatives Designed to Expand Minority Homeownership
Five-year Commitment Includes Funding for National Housing Symposia

ATLANTA, GA. -- Freddie Mac has committed $2 million to help the national NeighborWorks network of nonprofit housing and community-revitalization organizations pioneer new ways to enable more minority and other underserved families overcome financial and cultural barriers to homeownership.

Announced today at Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation's Training Institute in Atlanta, the partnership marks the expansion of a 10-year alliance that already has helped more than 67,000 low-and moderate-income families become homeowners through the NeighborWorks Campaign for Home Ownership. Freddie Mac's expanded five-year commitment also includes sponsorship of national symposia to address critical housing and community revitalization issues.

"Freddie Mac is proud to continue our work with the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation to strengthen communities through homeownership," said Leland C. Brendsel, Freddie Mac chairman and CEO. "Freddie Mac's alliance with NRC underscores our mutual commitment to put more families on the path to homeownership and greater personal financial security."

Freddie Mac's support for NRC is a component of Catch the Dream, Freddie Mac's comprehensive plan to help achieve the Bush Administration's goal of adding 5.5 million minority homeowners by the end of the decade.

"Freddie Mac's support of the NeighborWorks network—both through direct funding and creating flexible, affordable mortgage loan options—is instrumental to the unprecedented success of the NeighborWorks Campaign for Home Ownership," said Ellen Lazar, executive director of Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation."

NRC plans to use Freddie Mac's new five-year grant to build additional NeighborWorks HomeOwnership Centers, while expanding the activities of more than 50 existing HomeOwnership Centers serving communities nationwide. The funding will also help expand the scope of the HUD Housing Choice Voucher program, which enables qualified renters to apply the equivalent of their Section 8 rental subsidies to mortgage payments.

Additionally, Freddie Mac will be a leading national sponsor of major symposia on housing and community development issues. The symposia will be conducted as part of Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation's Training Institute, which is held four times annually in locations around the country.

Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation, which founded and supports the national NeighborWorks network, is a public nonprofit corporation chartered by Congress in 1978 to revitalize neighborhoods through increased homeownership, resident leadership, development of decent affordable rental housing, training and resident leadership. The NeighborWorks network of more than 220 local organizations serve more than 2,300 urban, suburban and rural communities, and last year generated approximately $1.7 billion in local investments. More information on Neighborhood Reinvestment and the NeighborWorks system is available at http://www.nw.org.

Freddie Mac is a stockholder-owned corporation chartered by Congress in 1970 to create a continuous flow of funds to mortgage lenders. By supplying lenders with the money to make mortgages and packaging the mortgages into marketable securities, Freddie Mac sustains a stable mortgage credit system and reduces the mortgage rates paid by homebuyers. Over the years, Freddie Mac has opened the doors for one in six homebuyers in America and two million renters. More information on Freddie Mac can be found on the company's web site located at http://www.freddiemac.com.

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