OTHER TEACHERS AS RESOURCES
| LESSON | TEACHERS | COMPLETE LESSONS |
| 1 | Sybil Schlesinger | Training Volunteers |
| 2 | Ashley Dumas | Homebuying at a Homeless Shelter |
| 3 | Veronica Gouvea | Homebuying at a Community College |
| 4 |
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1) Training Literacy Volunteers by Sybil Schlesinger, LVA Literacy Unlimited, Framingham
I am the Program Coordinator for LVA Literacy Unlimited, an affiliate of Literacy Volunteers of America. Our program provides one-to-one tutoring for adults, aged 16 and over, who live in the MetroWest area of Massachusetts. We train volunteers to teach basic reading, writing, computation and/or English language skills for speakers of other languages. There are currently just over 230 pairs of tutors and students learning together. Once a year we have a Tutor/Student Recognition Evening to celebrate the program's anniversary and the achievements of our tutors and students. Since the tutors recognize homebuying as a goal their students would like to achieve, I assumed that a homebuying curriculum would be of interest to both our tutors and students.
In my role as Coordinator of the program, I designed and implemented three trainings, two of which were for other LVA coordinators across Massachusetts and the third training which was for tutors in my own program.
Training 1: Literacy Volunteers of Massachusetts' Affiliates Meeting
I took the FannieMae Foundation's ESOL and ABE curricula and the ALRI homebuying readiness materials to the Literacy Volunteers of Massachusetts affiliates meeting on Friday, February 26th in Auburn, Massachusetts at that city's public library. There are 12 affiliates spread across Massachusetts in Boston, Fitchburg, Framingham (our affiliate, LVA Unlimited), Lowell, Norwood, Orange/Athol, Palmer, Pittsfield, Quincy, Southbridge, South Hadley, and Worcester. The coordinators of each of these programs meet in Auburn every other month. As part of the scheduled agenda at the February 26th meeting, I passed out the teacher's guide and students' workbooks for both the ESOL and ABE curricula. As a group, we went through the table of contents. Then I spent time discussing the levels of the two books, suggesting that given our students' capabilities, it actually might be more useful to use the ESOL curriculum for our basic literacy and beginning ESOL students, and the ABE curriculum for our GED and advanced ESOL students. We compared the difference between the two workbooks looking, page by page, at the initial chapter, "Do you want to buy a house?"
I also discussed the value of using the homebuying curriculum to teach financial literacy. Teaching financial literacy was of particular interest to the coordinators across the state and the ability to offer a workbook that students could own-- as opposed to the Xeroxed copies of workbooks that they normally must use-- was also appealing.
I discussed the soft second mortgage program, a state-provided tool for lowering the cost of homebuying for low-income families, and the state-provided workshops on homebuying offered across the state. We also discussed the options of having bank officers run a workshop for tutors and students on mortgages and establishing credit, the possibility of having students who bought their own homes run a workshop, and the possibility of having state officers come in to discuss tools for helping low-income families buy homes.
Finally, I presented some other agencies as resources such as A Better Chance for Development (ABCD) and other Community Action Programs (CAPs) across the state, The Boston Home Center run by the Boston City Mayor's Office, the Boston Oil Consumer Alliance, Massachusetts Immigration and Refugee Advocacy (MIRA), the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance (MAHA), and the Massachusetts Bar Association.
By the end of the meeting, each coordinator had at least five books to take back to his/her site: the teacher's guide for the FannieMae Foundation's ESOL and ABE curricula, the student workbooks for the ESOL and ABE FannieMae Foundation's curricula, and Where the Sun Breezes Don't Stop Shining, the result of the ALRI's 1998's Homebuying Readiness Project, a rich resource filled with student and teacher writings as well as a thorough listing of homebuying and community agencies.
Training 2: LVA Literacy Unlimited
I ran a more in-depth homebuying readiness workshop for my own tutors on Tuesday, May 11th. I presented the same information that I had presented to my colleagues at the Literacy Volunteers of Massachusetts affiliates meeting in February, but instead of simply comparing the initial chapters on homebuying, the tutors and students present broke up into pairs and each worked on a method to present one of the first four lessons in Unit One. This hands-on activity was well received. Each pair presented their lesson to the group. This gave the tutors and students ample time to discover what the guides had to offer and the opportunity to share teaching ideas and methods with other tutors.
Training 3: Literacy Volunteers of Massachusetts' Annual Conference
Because the LVA Literacy Unlimited training was so successful, I decided to adopt the same model for the Literacy Volunteers of Massachusetts' Annual Conference on June 5th. It went over just as well, and I expect to continue to offer these homebuying workshops each year for my affiliates and perhaps the annual conferences as well.
2) Introducing the Homebuying Curriculum by Ashley Dumas, Project Hope
I formally introduced the FannieMae Foundation's curriculum during this class. I explained that as a participating teacher in the Adult Literacy Resource Institute's Homebuying Readiness Curriculum Project, I was being trained to use the FannieMae Foundation's Homebuying Curriculum so that our classes could learn about homebuying. I handed out the workbooks, and introduced Deborah Schwartz, coordinator of the Homebuying Readiness Project who answered questions about the project and about homebuying in general. The students were very interested and receptive to the topic of homebuying. I was relieved and excited to hear their enthusiasm.
3) How to Buy a House: A Conversation with the Coordinator of the Project by Veronica Gouvea
The coordinator of the homebuying readiness project, Deborah Schwartz, visited our class and spoke about her experience as a recent homebuyer.
The students interviewed her, took notes and for homework wrote a summary. Her visit was a highlight; she is a warm and lively presenter, and provided authenticity to the homebuying process- "real" answers to "real" questions. In addition, because she is employed part-time by a number of different agencies, in order to qualify for her loan, she had to be convincing about her employment- a good and inspiring model for non-traditional loan application.
4) Community Resources/First Time Homebuying Classes by Stephen Hanley & Deborah Marquardt
Herber Riggs, a First-time Homebuying Instructor from the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative conducted an introductory workshop on some basic housing terms, the process of buying a house and eligibility criteria for low-income mortgage programs. The purpose of the workshop was to demystify the homebuying process and share information about first-time homebuying classes for students who may be interested in purchasing a home.
The workshop started out a bit hesitantly, with participants resisting Mr. Riggs' assertions that home owning is a goal within their reach. Questions like, "What if you get fired?", were voiced early on. As Mr. Riggs took the class through a financial scenario of a family of modest finances who reaches their goal of homebuying, participants slowly relaxed and started to absorb the information. Mr. Riggs explained some of the financial programs available, such as the City of Boston's "soft second" loan programs. He broke down the actual cost of buying and maintaining a house on the black board with the help of the participants. Participants began to smile and nod as they learned that home owning costs were comparable, and in some cases more reasonable than renting costs in the current Boston housing market.
At this point, students began to volunteer other advantages to home ownership, such as the good feeling of having your home be "yours" and being able to fix your home up the way you want it without having to worry about the landlord. The students were at their most enthusiastic when Mr. Riggs stated, "When you own property, it gives you power."
The Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, in partnership with the City of Boston's Department of Community and Neighborhood Development continually offers a five-week homebuying class in the community. When Mr. Riggs invited students to register for one such class, students asked for information regarding the times and dates!