Yuping Liang, left, and Zhiqiang Su prepare Zonzgi sticky rice dumplings at their home in Bridgeport on June 20, 2023.
For millions of people in the United States like Su and Liang, the challenges that come with buying a home escalate because they have limited to no credit, and immigrants are particularly vulnerable given that they have no credit score when they come to the U.S.
“If you’re regularly paying your rent on time, that’s a good indication you will also pay your mortgage on time,” Federal Housing Commissioner Julia Gordon said in a news release from September 2022. “We hope that adding this positive factor to all of the characteristics currently considered in an FHA credit evaluation will increase access to affordable FHA-insured mortgages for first-time homebuyers.
“A home is more than shelter,” Almodovar said in a statement to the Tribune. “It defines who we are, provides stability to our communities, and promotes generational wealth.” “This is improving the financial resiliency of large-scale numbers of folks who have very little options to do so with their income levels,” Brodsky said, adding that Related’s average affordable housing resident has an income of $15,000 a year. “This practice works and is scalable and is cost effective.”
Su’s mortgage lender, Bing He, said that while he has not run a credit check yet on Su given that he has not found a home he wants to buy, people typically need two lines of credit to help them qualify for a loan. Su only has one, in the form of a credit card, since last May.