By Dana Bykowski
June 23, 2003

Scott Syphax, CEO & President of The Nehemiah Corporation of California, and corporate chairperson of CitiesFirst®, raised the issue of preserving the economic value of homeownership, at the Saturday morning plenary session in Denver. The Nehemiah Corporation, the nation's leading provider of down payment assistance, are currently helping many Americans achieve the goal of homeownership in over 5,000 cities across the country. With their innovative downpayment assistance initiative, The Nehemiah Program¨, has helped over 150,000 Americans become homeowners and have gifted over 500,000 million dollars to homeowners.

"Cities today face many fiscal, social, and spiritual challenges, and it is crucial that we educate citizens to use their access to capital wisely, and preserve the value of the equity of homeownership," said Syphax.

Syphax touched on the subject of asset depletion. Today, Americans have considerable access to capital and credit. Yet, with greater access to capital and credit, comes the greater potential for asset depletion. Instead of treating it like a lifelong investment, people are using their home mortgages like an ATM machine to pay off debt, buy a new car, or go on a vacation.

"Homeownership has many different roles, and we must protect the reason that home equity exists' to help establish wealth and generate health economically stable communities. Home equity is a precious resource that our nation depends on," Syphax told the mayors.

"As mayors, you know how bad it is in your city. As a nation, we are facing an affordable housing shortage of historic proportions. This shortage constitutes a crisis that, unless addressed, will plague our cities and will result in the diminution of your ability to effectively manage and promote their future prosperity," said Syphax.

In Nehemiah's hometown of Sacramento, the non-profit took action by creating a $26 million real estate equity fund for investment in mixed-use affordable housing developments and commercial facilities in underserved low and moderate-income communities across the six-county Sacramento Valley. This is only the third equity fund of its kind in California and the first in the Sacramento region. Right now we are beginning to develop similar funds in other cities across the country.

Syphax also touched on the importance of the CitiesFirst partnership, and how it has helped mayors across the country. The CitiesFirst® roundtables have inspired the mayors of cities such as Houston and El Paso, Texas to form citywide affordable housing task forces to bring together local housing advocates on a regular basis to create real solutions to the housing needs of residents. Additionally, CitiesFirst® has helped build relationships between builders and bankers. The program has also made possible discussions between nonprofit community development corporations and real estate associations.

CitiesFirst® has provided technical assistance to smaller cities Key West, Florida and Berkeley, California ranging from restructuring their existing housing and community development programs to developing homebuyer education programs.

"These are but a few examples of how; in partnership between the Nehemiah Corporation and the U.S. Conference of Mayors are working to assist mayors on the frontlines of this battle for affordable housing," said U.S. Conference of Mayors Executive Director J. Thomas Cochran.