Elevation Community Land Trust (ECLT) is proud to announce the launch of the Doors to Opportunity program, a new way for people of color to find the freedom of homeownership in Colorado. The innovative program seeks to close the racial wealth gap for households today, while addressing the housing crisis by ensuring permanently affordable homes well into the future.

“There are two types of segregation,” says Stefka Fanchi, ECLT’s President & CEO, “There’s keeping people out, and there’s keeping people in. Elevation has been committed to preventing displacement from communities by providing equitable opportunities to own, and we’ll continue to do that through our homeownership program.

Homeownership is the primary method through which American households build wealth, and lack of access to homeownership is the main cause of the racial wealth gap. Due to more than 100 years of discriminatory housing policies, the typical White family has eight times the wealth of the typical Black family and five times the wealth of the typical Hispanic family. Over the last ten years, gaps in homeownership rates have widened, and today, the percentage of Black families who own their home is lower than it was in 1969.

Doors to Opportunity is available to households earning less than 80% of the Area Median Income who are able to qualify for a mortgage with an ECLT-approved lender and become qualified through the ECLT application process, and who identify as black, indigenous, Latinx, Asian/Pacific Islander, or other person of color. Homes to be purchased can be located anywhere in Colorado as long as those homes meet specific safety and quality criteria.

Doors down payment assistance loans have a one-half percent interest rate with no payments, and become due upon sale, transfer, or after 30 years.

“Doors to Opportunity is a game-changer,” says Gilda Zaragoda, a Denver-based Realtor who hopes to become certified as a Doors buyer’s agent. “With interest rates rising, the window to get into homeownership is closing quickly. With Doors, I’ll be able to see joy instead of disappointment on my clients’ faces.”

For more information, contact:

Stefka Fanchi, CEO, Elevation CLT, sfanchi@elevationclt.org

Tiana Patterson, Public Policy & Legal Director, tpatterson@elevationclt.org