Editor’s Note: Norwood News is officially on our annual summer hiatus. However, we are continuing to publish some ad hoc stories online that we couldn’t get to earlier this year. We hope you all get to enjoy the last few weeks of summer and thanks, as always, for reading. 

In recognition of June as Homeownership Month, Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson joined University Neighborhood Housing Program at Ridgewood Savings Bank’s Norwood branch for a Financial Literacy & Homeownership Day on June 26.

 

The aim of the event was to help the Bronx community with the necessary resources, banking tools, and lending information needed to secure housing and to learn about saving for a strong future. The event was targeted at both adults and young people.

 

During the event, attendees were invited to connect with trusted financial and housing experts, they learned how to improve their credit and start saving, found out if they qualified for first-time homebuyer assistance and signed up for one-on-one consultations for a later date.

 

Domenico Ciaccio, vice president, CRA officer and business banking manager at Ridgewood Savings Bank, said of the event, “All of us at Ridgewood Savings Bank send a heartfelt thank you to our Norwood branch team, the University Neighborhood Housing Program (UNHP), and Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson’s office for hosting our recent “Building Futures,” a homeownership and financial literacy event!”

He added, “The invaluable insights shared on building credit, starting savings, and accessing first-time homebuyer programs make a lasting impact in the community. We’re proud to be part of empowering Bronx residents to create a future full of opportunities.”

 

For her part, Gibson encouraged the residents to get involved, saying, “During our State of the Borough, we spoke about the importance of connecting our residents to homeownership opportunities.”

 

She added, “Homeownership can help build generational wealth, stabilize families and communities, and encourage financial empowerment. Don’t miss this opportunity to start building your future.”

 

As reported, UNHP, created in 1983 by Fordham University to help Bronxites take ownership of community-based redevelopment efforts, it marked 40 years in operation in 2023.

In 2024, UNHP was selected by the New York Housing Conference as their non-profit of the year.  At the time, UNHP officials said they had worked with the Housing Conference for many years around issues affecting affordable housing, and looked forward to continuing that work to address what they said were some of the pressing issues jeopardizing the existing stock of affordable multifamily units in New York City.

 

“We try to devise answers to the problems that we face in our buildings and neighborhoods,” UNHP officials said at the time. “Based on those answers, we seek to affect policy so everyone can benefit from them. Working with our many partners in the community, non-profit, for-profit, and governmental sectors, we have seen a lot of positive results from that work.”

 

They added that in recent years, conditions have developed that are jeopardizing some of the existing work with the potential for deeper damage. “People’s difficulty with paying the rent, combined with soaring operating expenses and bureaucratic delays in government have threatened community-developed affordable housing and both non-profit and for-profit developers,” they said.

 

They added, “We have been working to figure out how to address these problems to preserve the thousands of apartments that are in good condition with good management and to develop opportunities for buildings that are in deteriorating condition to improve their situations. We expect this to be a major part of our agenda for the next couple of years.”

 

NYC Department of Housing, Preservation & Development announces details of affordable home ownership from time to time. Click here for more information.