Owning a home is reason to celebrate

By Erin Cox
Denver Post Staff Writer

Aurora - Cindy Reyes finally got her wish.

"It's been my dream to have my own home ever since I was a little girl. As a mental patient, I thought it would never happen," Reyes said Tuesday.

In May, she became the 50th low-income disabled Coloradan to buy a home through cooperative state and federal efforts begun in 2000.

Reyes, 49, has posttraumatic stress disorder and bipolar disorder - disabilities that prevent her from working and have kept her and her 18- year-old son in subsidized rental housing.

On Tuesday, Reyes took a break from tiling and landscaping her newly purchased Aurora home to celebrate with about 20 people from several different agencies who helped her into her corner lot complete with a picket-fenced rose garden.

Reyes is one of about 3,000 mentally ill or physically or developmentally disabled Coloradans who receive monthly housing assistance financed through the federal department of Housing and Urban Development.

The Colorado Department of Human Services distributes housing vouchers to disabled, low-income people. The vouchers can be used toward rent - or a mortgage payment if the family qualifies.

"Previously, people didn't have the ability to own a house of their own," said Sam DeSiato, a state employee who coordinates the HUD vouchers. "They are able to build assets and can move into better neighborhoods when they buy. They've got stability."

None of the 50 homeowners has ever missed a payment, and most earn only 30 percent of the median income of their new neighborhoods. The average annual income of disabled homeowners is $11,386, and frequently their income comes from disability payments.

"Most people say at that income, they couldn't possibly buy. But we've done it time and time again," said Dianne Hitchingham, previous president of the Hero Alliance.

Through the Hero Alliance, a nonprofit resource center for disabled potential homeowners, 1,400 disabled Coloradans have purchased homes since 1995.

"Homeownership is a great American dream," said Marva Livingston Hammons, executive director of the state Human Services Department. "For a long time, it's been an impossible dream for far too many people."

In cooperation with the HUD program, the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority provides a second mortgage to people like Reyes at a 3 percent interest rate to finance the down payment.

A proud Reyes escorted visitors through her new house Tuesday, pointing out the improvements she has already made.

"I'm tired of fixing up places for someone else," Reyes said. "I never want to move again."

Staff writer Erin Cox can be reached at 303-820-1474 or at ecox@denverpost.com .

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