Focused Community Strategies
FCS Team

FCS Team

FCS Team

FCS Team

Celebrating with Neighbors Reaching Their Goals

by Cynthia McNeal

We believe a home is essential to a family’s health and success. The stability that comes from knowing where you will sleep at night and the relief of predictable payments can impact families deeply.

We are delighted to celebrate with one of our Charis homeowners, Ms. Armour. FCS offers an Affordable Homeownership Program that provides qualifying families a twenty year mortgage plan with zero interest. In 1996, Ms. Armour purchased her home through this program. When we first got to know her, we learned that her dream was to get a degree.

For years, she paid regularly and on time. Then suddenly, about two years ago, we were hearing from her less frequently. We tried to reach out, but couldn’t connect. Finally, Ms. Armour came to our office and shared what had been going on in her life. After working in the mental health and addiction recovery field for twenty years, she wanted to pursue more responsibility and higher paying positions. Therefore, she had begun attending school to pursue her master’s degree.

She then explained how she was juggling finances for school and her mortgage by paying quarterly instead of monthly. FCS was able to support her in her pursuit of higher education by restructuring her payments to better accommodate her fluctuations in income. She continued to provide update as her hours were cut and school load was increasing, and we walked with her through the process so she could continue paying on her house.

Eventually, we sat down with Ms. Armour and explained how much (or actually, how little) she had left to pay on her home, and she committed to paying it off as quickly as possible. Around February, she checked in and told us she was almost at the finish line. Then, this spring, she walked into our office with a cashier’s check and paid off her house!

We absolutely love celebrating success stories like Ms. Armour’s! Even better? This May, she and her daughter are graduating! Her daughter is completing high school and will go on to attend West Georgia University in the fall. Ms. Armour is graduating with her Master’s degree in Divinity with a concentration in leadership. Her dream is to start a residential home for women seeking stability to receive training and counseling.

We are so proud of Ms. Armour’s hard work! And we are beyond grateful to have the relationships and flexibility to be able to partner with homeowners and see them reach their goals.

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