Where the Sun Breezes Don't Stop Shining  


Eastern Massachusetts New Americans Homeowners Project

Spring 1998

Introduction

The New Americans Homeowners Project sponsored by the Adult Literacy Resource Institute and supported by the FannieMae Foundation offers the opportunity to teachers from Boston area community-based organizations, community colleges and other organizations offering English for Speakers of Other Languages to use the FannieMae Foundation's publication How to Buy a Home in the United States with their students. We welcome you to read about the experiences of teachers and students as they explored this new curriculum.

Contents

Overview of the Project

Meet the Teachers: 1998

Teachers' Writings: Spring 1998

Resources for Teachers: Articles and Lesson Plans on Homebuying

Students' Writings: Spring 1998

What Do Students Think? 1998

Other Homebuying Web Resources

Archives: Teachers' and Students' Writings: Spring 1997

The Adult Literacy Resource Institute (A.L.R.I.) Eastern Massachusetts New Americans Homeowners Project Spring 1998

Overview of the Project

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

The goals of our project have been:

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

2. To support immigrant students' 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. Home ownership 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 and to find new methods of gathering information and organizing content.

Since the project's beginning in 1997, we have trained a total of 28 teachers to use How to Buy a Home in the United States and have documented our work on this Web site. The A.L.R.I. has given presentations on the project at the 1998 TESOL conference in Seattle as well as at adult literacy education conferences in Massachusetts. The A.L.R.I.'s project has been cited in the adult literacy journal, Focus On Basics, and students from 1997's project at Roxbury Community College were featured in an article in the FannieMae Foundation's annual report.  In the fall of 1998 the A.L.R.I. will provide grants to adult literacy students and teachers at programs in the greater Boston area to create  virtual visit  Web pages on homebuying readiness.

Adult literacy and ESOL programs participating in the project are located at community based organizations and community colleges in the Boston area. In 1998, the project  also worked with three teachers in the Merrimack Valley region in the Northeast part of the state where many new immigrants have moved. We have the Northeast SABES Regional Support Center in Lawrence to thank for assisting us in implementing the project there.

ESOL students who studied first-time homebuying represent a wide range of language and ethnic groups, including: Latino, Haitian, Portuguese-speaking, Asian, Russian, and African. 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.

In 1997-98, Cathy Anderson was the facilitator for the workshops and provided technical assistance to teachers as they used the curriculum. In the fall of 1998, A.L.R.I. Director, David Rosen, developed the Virtual Visit Web pages project.

 Workshops and Technical Assistance

We have found that the best approach to guiding teachers in the use of the curriculum is to provide teacher-sharing workshops coupled with on-site technical assistance. Three workshops, held throughout one semester, offered the following: 1) an overview of the first-time home ownership process; 2) model lessons that make further use of the curriculum guide, How to Buy a Home in the United States and 3) teacher sharing of their progress in classes and a presentation by a teacher who has already used 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, the Merrimack Valley Housing Partnership and the FannieMae Partnership office in Boston. In addition, in 1997, 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.

Teachers' and Students' Contributions

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 these Web pages.

Teachers' articles cover a range of methods in adapting the curriculum. In 1998, most teachers worked with beginning level students who were interested not only in homebuying, but in understanding how finances work in this country. Teachers also developed additional lesson plans to supplement the ones in How to Buy a Home in the United States. For a listing of teachers' and students' writings, go to Contents at the beginning of this page.

 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 home ownership, they were aware that buying a home in the United States is very difficult. Teachers felt that the FannieMae Foundation's curriculum should not be used as a substitute for the comprehensive first-time home ownership courses offered in Boston. Instead, the curriculum served as an introduction to the idea of homebuying, and a preparation for making a purchase some day 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, three-family) 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 1998 and 1997, as classes gained momentum, teachers were discovering various approaches to the curriculum, such as: 1) descriptive writing about house structures; 2) creating a video of the class and teacher using the curriculum; 3) researching houses for sale on the Internet (Boston Globe Web site); 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, and provide information on first-time homebuying, 7) writing about a childhood home; and 8) integrating a curriculum on banking and financial literacy with the homebuying materials.

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. In 1997, the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance visited two classes to explain the availability of "soft second mortgages" and other programs for low-income buyers. In a program offered at the Community Action Program in Haverhill this year, the Merrimack Valley Housing Partnership was asked to give a presentation to students.

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 UnitedStates. 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 stated: "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 experienced 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. 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. The FannieMae Foundation'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, and dreams. 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."

 Acknowledgments

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

Written by Cathy Anderson, Project Coordinator
Updated October 10, 1998  by David J. Rosen