The New Americans Homeowners Project in Boston, sponsored by the Adult Literacy Resource Institute, offered the opportunity to 15 teachers from Boston area community-based organizations, community colleges and other organizations offering English for Speakers of Other Languages to use the FannieMae Foundation-sponsored How to Buy a Home in the United States  with their students; teachers and students alike documented their experiences using the curriculum, and on these pages are writings about their experiences in the Spring of 1997.

Overview of the A.L.R.I's New Americans Homeowners Project

With the generous support of the FannieMae Foundation, the Adult Literacy Resource Institute of Boston provided teacher training workshops and technical assistance in the use of FannieMae's homebuying curriculum for English as a Second Language students, How to Buy a Home in the United States.

The expected outcomes of the project were: 1) Between 15 and 35 teachers would use How to Buy a Home in the United States materials; 2) At least 200 students would use these materials, and at least 30 would write about their experiences on the path toward buying a home; 3) As a result of these efforts, in 1997, the Fannie Mae Foundation would get a minimum of 200 requests from Massachusetts for a total of 2,000 student copies of How to Buy a Home in the United States; and 4) There would be documented accounts of students using the materials and moving toward the purchase of a home -- in hard copy ,and on the A.L.R.I. World Wide Web pages.

The target group included fifteen teachers of 200 students at the advanced and intermediate English for Speakers of other Languages (ESOL) levels. Most of the students attended ESOL programs provided at community based organizations in central Boston; at least six teachers taught at the community college level. The students were from a wide range of language groups, representing the eight major ethnicities of the Boston area: Latino, Haitian, Portuguese-speaking, Chinese, Vietnamese, Russian, and African, including others. Many classes were comprised of students from the same ethnic and/or language group, but a number of classes also were mixed. All students shared the common goal of speaking and writing better English, and acquiring an understanding of the complexities of life in the U.S. A few teachers also adapted the materials for their English-speaking adult basic education students.

The purpose of the A.L.R.I. project was to provide teachers with information and resources as they taught the FannieMae curriculum in their classes. The A.L.R.I. also proposed these additional project goals:

1. To project a vision of hope in a culture becoming increasingly more anti-immigrant.

2. To support immigrant studentsÍ goals of establishing a new life in this country. Many students are becoming citizens, getting involved in community life and establishing themselves in their new communities. Homeownership is another possible step. 3. With the participation of ESOL teachers from many programs across the city, to discover approaches in creating a content-based curriculum; to find new methods of gathering information and organizing content.

Cathy Anderson was the facilitator for the workshops and provided technical assistance to teachers as they used the curriculum.

Workshops and Teachers' Participation

Three workshops, held in March, April and May offered an overview of the first-time homeownership process. The workshops were organized by the A.L.R.I.'s New Americans Homeowners Project coordinator, who also provided technical assistance to teachers on use of the materials. The workshops provided an opportunity to acquaint teachers with the terms used in homebuying; review the steps needed in buying a home, and distribute resources for low-income consumers that are available in Boston. Presenters included representatives from The Boston Home Center, Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance, and the FannieMae Partnership office in Boston. In addition, the A.L.R.I. offered one community-wide workshop held at Roxbury Community College, featuring the curriculum and providing experts in the Boston real estate field.

As the workshops progressed, the fifteen teachers shared their teaching with each other and four gave presentations at the open community meeting in June. Each teacher kept a record of the number of books used in class and the homebuying activities. All the teachers submitted a final report on how they used the curriculum, and offered their experience and insight for use by other teachers. The teachers' report along with students' writings on topics suggested by the curriculum are compiled in a document titled: Where the Sun Breezes Don't Stop Shining: Buying a Home in the U.S.

The Housing Needs of Boston Immigrants

Boston, known for centuries as a welcoming port of entry for peoples from all over the world, is rich in ethnic diversity. Like many immigrant cities, Boston contains numerous small neighborhoods that offer housing, ethnic markets, churches, and a central community to incoming immigrants. Over 20% of Boston is foreign born, most coming from Latin American, Asian, and Caribbean countries. While many newcomers feel a sense of hope when they come to Boston and realize that it is possible to retain a little of their native culture, they also meet the same obstacles all urban dwellers face: a diminishing housing market, transportation problems, and fewer educational choices, to name a handful. Many immigrant communities approach these challenges with a pragmatic wisdom, accumulated through years of experience in their home countries where the opportunity for change was much more limited. The result is a lively presence of immigrant involvement in Boston's civic life, and the commitment to making the city a permanent home. One of the major problems Boston immigrants face is the city's high cost of housing. Rents are extremely high, and homes are also priced beyond the middle-class range. Doreen Treacy, from the Boston Home Center, a city agency committed to helping low-income residents purchase their own homes, reports that Boston has one of the lowest homeowner populations in the country.

Adapting the Curriculum

Teachers who participated in our project work with students who are low-income and have lived in the U.S. for at least three years. Most students, of course, rent apartments in Boston. While many students were interested in the idea of homeownership, they were aware that buying a home in the United States is very difficult. Teachers felt that the FannieMae curriculum should not be used as a substitute for the comprehensive first-time homeownership courses offered in Boston. Instead, the curriculum served as an introduction to the idea of homebuying, and a preparation for making a purchase someday in the future. Most students would not be able to afford a home for another two years.

Teachers were able to adjust their curriculum to focus on the more immediate needs of their students, such as financial planning, credit, deciding the kind of home (one-family, duplex, ) a family would need, the best location, etc. Most teachers began by asking their classes if anyone had thought about buying a home, and explained their own interest in the curriculum. A few teachers informally surveyed students to determine their level of knowledge about homebuying, and/or if there were homeowners in the class. In at least two classes, the students who were homeowners opted not to disclose the fact to other students. In another class, a student was very forthright about her negative experience as a homeowner. Teachers were challenged to integrate students' various perspectives on homeownership, as well as their varying levels of interest and experience with finances in this country. As classes gained momentum, teachers were discovering various approaches to the curriculum, such as: 1) Descriptive writing of house structures; 2) Creating a video of the class and teacher using the curriculum; 3) Researching houses for sale on the Internet (Boston Globe website); 4) practicing negotiations with a seller or a landlord by role-playing in class; 5) Drawing a dream house; 6) Collaborating with other teachers to share speakers, provide information on first-time homebuying.

Lessons and Inquiries

Teachers were also challenged to keep track of students' questions and lead them in researching answers. Many questions point to specific issues of concern for immigrant homebuyers, such as "Does owning a home protect an immigrant from future deportation?" "Do you have to be a citizen or legal permanent resident to own a home?" These questions required research into the changing laws regarding immigrants and public benefits programs. The answer from a number of legal experts was that many of these laws were still being interpreted. In general, legal permanent residents would not encounter any problems with a mortgage or in applying for and receiving a public benefit such as the "soft-second mortgage," other classes of immigrants may have difficulty since the passage of the welfare reform law of 1996.

In more than one class, questions such as "Can someone who has been on welfare get a mortgage?"and "How can low-income people afford a home?" opened up a discussion on non-traditional credit. The Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance visited two classes to explain the availability of "soft second mortgages" and other programs for low-income buyers. Students learned also that past recipients of welfare would not be barred outright from obtaining a mortgage, especially if the person could prove a good non-traditional credit history and a good work record. A speaker from Nuestra Comunidad visited one class made up primarily of low-income Latino women and explained the homebuying process in both Spanish and English.

Exploring Content-Based Curriculum

When the A.L.R.I .first proposed this project, we were interested in discovering how teachers and students would engage in the process of exploring content, asking questions about what they were learning, and undertaking research. As outlined above, teachers were very successful at adapting the curriculum to the particular needs of their students. Students, for the most part, responded enthusiastically. In more than one class, students reported showing "How to Buy a Home in the U.S." to other family members or co-workers. One student said that when she showed her son the book, he told her, "You go to a good school." An ESOL teacher at the community college level explained her students' positive response and the reasons behind it in this way: "On the whole, students were pleased to be dealing with such adult materials. Very often ESOL students are not given access to such dense subject matter in such thorough coverage. In most texts, reading passages are of unrelated and disconnected subject matter. The advantage of content learning (and teaching) was evident in this curriculum."

Teachers were also engaged with the curriculum in a very personal way. Teachers who were homeowners themselves reported feeling very enthusiastic about beginning the curriculum as it gave them a chance to share their knowledge and experience in a more personal way. A Roxbury Community College teacher states: "My decision to participate in the project came from my interest in exploring new content areas and also the homebuying process. As a homeowner and landlord with two properties, I am experience in the homebuying process - from dealing with lenders to dealing with tenants. Although I appreciate the complexity of homebuying, I am an advocate for home ownership."  Teachers who were not homeowners welcomed the opportunity to learn more about the topic along with their students, although the few in the group who did not own homes stated they sometimes felt overwhelmed by the information. As one teacher phrased the experience, "My students' response has been so overwhelmingly positive throughout, that it has carried me, sometimes, dubious, but willing, along."

At the same time, the topic of homebuying, especially for low-income immigrants, remains enormously complex. Many teachers remarked that they wished the information on local resources (first time homebuyer subsidy programs) had been given in the beginning of the project, so that they could have been prepared for all of their students' questions. Many teachers, however, were able to convey to students that they themselves were learning at the same time. One teacher commented in her report: "Some of [the students] knew a lot already. I faced my inadequacy squarely, rushed to the library, and borrowed two books about buying a first home. That weekend, I drowned myself in real estate." Teachers also learned more from questioning experts on first-time homeownership programs, real estate agents, and others in the field. In the end, the A.L.R.I. has learned that this curriculum requires teacher/student shared learning, and an inquiry driven, rather than solely content driven approach. FannieMae's "How to Buy a Home in the United States" is a launching pad for many discussions of relevance to students, including, financial planning, American lifestyles, dreams, etc. The information students needed was not static, nor limited to one content area, but deepened as they asked questions of specific interest. One teacher advised, "teachers need to be aware of the fact that they will have to use outside sources, and will need to rely on their creativity and inventiveness. Another important factor is the students' needs regarding information, which will vary from class to class."

Homebuying Readiness

In the course of the project, the project coordinator interviewed three long-standing non-profit organizations involved with first-time homeownership. We learned that a number of local banks are enthusiastically marketing property without informing prospective buyers of the responsibilities of homeownership. New first-time homeowners may not be aware of the cost of upkeep, or the responsibilities of owning a multi-family house. The New Americans Homeowners Project attempted to address these issues, although more time would have been needed to thoroughly examine the difficulties of homeownership, especially for low-income working people. An illustrative story, or a video would have been a useful tool in communicating the real-life experiences of a homeowner. A teacher in a community program that serves both ESOL students and students studying for the high school diploma noted the immense need for discussion not only of homebuying, but other financial issues that come with it: "It is interesting to note that despite the fact that some students in the class are native English speakers, the class as a whole is largely uninformed as to their rights and responsibilities as consumers in American society." In using the curriculum, teachers recommend that before beginning, an ESOL teacher should review the whole curriculum first, chapter by chapter, noting which areas would be relevant to their students' interests. In creating a lesson plan, teachers can use the exercises laid out in the units, in addition to supplementing them with other resources. The following were common areas of focus:

1. Credit & savings.
2. Steps in planning to buy a house.
3. Looking for a home.
4. Deciding how much you can afford to pay for a home.
5. Negotiating with banks and lawyers.
6. Programs that can save you money.
7. Home issues of importance to tenants: lead paint poisoning and tenants' rights.
8. Filling out applications for mortgage programs.
9. Looking at the fuller picture: when homebuying is not a good choice right now.

Teachers also found the following materials, developed during the project to be useful.
(In the hard copy version, please see attachments):

1. Articles from the Boston Globe on homebuying. Teachers used these to study vocabulary and reading comprehension.

2. Real estate flyers. Students decoded abbreviations ("bdrm") and analyzed the language of advertising.

3. Angelo Rodriguez's Story. A fictional immigrant family buys a home in Malden that includes exercises on the steps toward buying a home and practice with vocabulary.

Please note attachments of the materials we used as supplements, names of speakers, resources, etc.

Acknowledgments

In addition to the support of the FannieMae Foundation, the A.L.R.I. is grateful to the in-kind services of the following agencies and people: former A.L.R.I. ESOL Coordinator, Lenore Balliro, who designed and managed the project;the FannieMae Partnership Office/Boston; the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition; The Cambridge Community Development Department; the Boston Home Center; Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance, Eve Moss of Clarendon Associates, Avi Davis of Innovative Moves; Roxbury Community College and the Roxbury Community College Foundation.