Good afternoon, everyone. This is Elizabeth Jennings with National Disability Institute. Thank you for joining us for today's webinar, Your Home: Owning, Refinancing, & Modifying, sponsored by us -- Acorda Therapeutics. I'd now like to invite Nakia Matthews to provide a few housekeeping tips.
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Thank you, Nakia. As I mentioned earlier, my name is Elizabeth Jennings. I'm the director of training and technical assistance for National Disability Institute. I will be your moderator today. Today we're going to talk about financial wellness, and individuals with MS. We're going to provide you some information about what we mean by financial wellness and what we've learned from a survey of individuals with MS. We're also going to hear from Lori Sandonato with ServiceSource on owning, refinancing and modifying your home. We're going to provide you with plenty of resources at the end of the webinar and leave plenty of time for questions and answers. Finally, we're going to offer you a couple of suggested next steps, things you may consider doing so you can put what you learn today in practice. I'd like to offer a special thank you to our sponsor Acorda Therapeutics of provides us with the opportunity to offer you this financial wellness webinar series. For those of you who are joining us for the first time, National Disability Institute is a national research and development organization with the mission to promote income preservation and asset relevant for persons with disabilities. Our mission is to build a better economic future for Americans with disabilities. We defined financial wellness as the state of a person's finances with the intent of working towards financial behaviors that limit stress, and the impact of stress on one's daily life. For many of you on the line who may be living with MS, you know how important it can be to limit the impact of stress on one's daily life. Financial wellness can include many different strategies. Being financially literate, accessing affordable financial services, utilizing favorable tax provisions, budgeting, understanding public benefit rules, building and maintaining assets, accessing available healthcare subsidies, and understanding work and long-term disability options. We try to cover many or all of these topics throughout the webinar series, but if there's a question that you have in addition to what you learned during one of the webinars would like to invite you to reach out to us at any point in time. There's good reason for us to talk about the link between disability and poverty. The national poverty estimates show that for individuals with disabilities, 12.8% -- I'm sorry, for individuals without disabilities, 12.8% had incomes below the poverty level in 2010. For individuals with disabilities, more than two times that rate, 27.3%, had incomes below the poverty level. No group in America is more in need of or more deserving of economic recovery. For millions of working age adults, a dependence on public benefits for income, healthcare, food and/or housing becomes a trap that requires staying poor to stay eligible. For some of you on the line that are participating in one or more public benefit -- benefits, you may often get the message that earning money and saving money, they are not options for you or you will lose that eligibility. I want to take a moment to invite any of you on the line that received Social Security Disability Insurance to join us for next m onth's webinar where we will share with you key information to understanding that public benefit and the room that you have to work and to save. At National Disability Institute, we take hold of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It says that the nations proper goals regarding individuals with disabilities are to assure equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency. A lot is done at the community, state level and at the federal level to ensure that there is equality of opportunity that people are fully participating in community life, that individuals have independent living options but not as much has been done to look at the economic self-sufficiency. And to ask the question, are Americans with disabilities being given the opportunity to have full participation in the economic mainstream of the US? So in addition to all of those reasons for the importance of the financial wellness there's also some personal individual things that financial wellness can do for you that makes it incredibly important. First, it impacts your mental and physical health, stress on the body can increase an individual's symptoms. It positively impact your self-concept, your ability to effectively manage your money can provide you with improved self-concept -- concept. It's changes your status with other community stakeholders. That may be as simple as having the funds to be able to participate in community life, to fully access all of the different services that you may want to participate in the community. It directly impacts your quality-of-life. Before we started this webinar series back in 2011, we did a survey with our partners at the Multiple Sclerosis Association of America. We got about 1200 respondents who all shared information about financial wellness and the impact of MS on their financial life. We learned several key things. More than half, 55% of households, that responded, or less than $35,000 annually. And between $35,000 and $50,000 in earnings we saw that only about 16.4% of people fell into that category. So that means that over 70% of individuals had incomes below $50,000 a year. When asked about the ability to pay all of their bills in a typical month, 32% reported they had a very difficult time paying their bills and almost 50% reported a somewhat difficult time. 43% reported that their financial status had affected their ability to access medical care at some point. 71.7% noted that they do not have enough savings to cover three months of expenses. That milestone, the ability to cover three months' expenses is an indicator of whether or not somebody is financial still -- financially stable. A key indicator as to the kind of information that's necessary. Also, 67% reported that their finances were worse since their MS diagnosis. And finally, 73.7% reported that they were not aware of or have not used different financial stability programs that we seek to provide to you through this webinar series. Those programs include information about the Earned Income Tax Credit, individual development accounts, the Family Self-Sufficiency p rogram, and Plan for Achieving Self-support. If you're interested in more information about one of these financial stability programs, you're welcome to e-mail them to u s. We'd be happy to share information with you. View some of the archives of these webinars or stay tuned for some of the future webinars. There are many, many strategies that an individual can use to improve their financial wellness. Financial literacy, budgeting, credit repair, getting banked, using different incentives that currently exist such as Social Security's Work Incentives or tax incentives. Utilizing free services to receive -- to do your tax preparation and see if you qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit, participating in state Medicaid Buy-In program. They are Medicaid programs that allow for working individuals with disabilities to pay a portion of their Medicaid costs to allow them to have Medicaid. There are different programs that allow you to save money that is sometimes matched or comes with reduced percentages on loans. Or maybe an opportunity for you to save without impacting a public benefit. Those include Family Self-Sufficiency programs, individual development accounts, Assistive Technology loan funds, student loans, and retirement accounts. Also included in financial wellness strategies are some of the asset that you may have or you may want to build. Post secondary education, employment, micro-enterprise, self-employment, or homeownership. Finally, all of these strategies are strengthened by the different opportunities that are available to get support when you need it. Not only from National Disability Institute but also from your state protection and advocacy program, from taxpayer advocates, credit counseling services, Volunteer Income Tax Assistance sites, and work incentive planning and assistance programs. We hope that in addition to today's webinar, you have a chance to participate with us on other webinars as we seek to provide you information that will help to build your financial wellness and put you in good position for the future. I'd now like to take a moment to introduce Lori Sandonato, director of housing for ServiceSource to provide you additional information on your home, owning, refinancing and modifying. Lori, thank you so much for joining us today.
Thank you so much. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm very happy to be here and be part of this group. And hopefully to give you some tips and some information of value. That can help you in your progression towards ownership or towards making your own home more accessible already. We want you to be informed, be confident, but if you can't be happy, it's not going to do you any good. So one of the first things I want to go into is how to purchase your own home. Just because you are a person with a lower income or you have a disability, that certainly does not put you out of the realm of being a homeowner. I have personally processed and seen 137 households with disabilities and incomes that are below 50% of the median level for income in their area become a homeowner. So a first-time buyer is someone who has never owned. Or has not owned in three years. If you owned five years ago, that doesn't matter. And it's also a person that could be either spouse in place of a divorce, and you don't get the house, but you can document -- most areas will consider you a first-time home buyer. There is a unique blend of situations like -- right now, going on for a couple of years. I'm starting to see it go back toward the old way. So right now, it is still somewhat a buyers market. The interest rates are insanely l ow. Right now, the average rate is between 4% and 5.5%. When I first started 30 years ago, the first loan I did was at 18%. So it is the lowest rates that have been seen in generations. This is the last year of the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, also known as NSP. These are funds that the Obama Administration has put out to stop the bleeding in the areas of high foreclosure rates. It allows these properties to be turned around. Most of them are being resold to owner occupants. It is coming from the city and county government. So they are trying to sell these pretty quickly. Banks don't want to own homes, they want to lend on homes but they don't want to own them. They are ready to unload the properties that they have right n ow. You would have a variety of properties to choose from. Some of the areas are still posting very low sales prices. That may not be true in your area. I understand that we have people from all over the nation. But they will be lower than what you have typically seen. Sellers are still ready to offer incentives. And they are ready to negotiate. And when the property boom five years ago, everyone got a real estate license. And now they are all quite hungry. They don't get paid unless they sell. There's a lot of competition between realtors to get business. The Neighborhood Stabilization Program, there was 4 billion set aside for this program. And as you can see on the slide, 80% of that amount is going to go for the purchase and renovation to be resold to qualified buyers. There are other assistance programs that you would be able to layer. For instance, down payment assistance, tax credits through state organizations, and these local governments really have to sell these properties within a specified timeframe or else they're going to have to start turning them over to other people, other nonprofit agencies to have them as rentals. They really want to turn that into income. So your best steps -- your best armor at this point is to be informed. Enter a first time homebuyer class early in the process. The budgeting classes. All over the place. You can register for these even online. A lot of them have a curriculum that you can take at your own pace. You can just Google it and they will specify if they have been approved as a HUD provider on these. And you will have the certificate that you need to print, showing that you can qualify for the down payment assistance program. Spends time on the Internet if at all possible. You will find a wealth of information as you already know. There's a note here to get preapproved, not prequalified, by a reputable lender. To get prequalified, that's just -- that's a phone call. Someone calls. I could do that right now. How much do you make? This is how much of a house payment you should be able to afford and this is what you can buy. That's doesn't mean anything. You want to get preapproved, meaning you have gone through the process with an actual lender. And have secured the financing. It gives you a leg up when you go to bargain with the seller. Look, I've already been preapproved. I know I can afford this. My financing is in place versus someone else saying, I'm pretty sure I can afford this. Most importantly, it will keep you from falling in love with a property that you can't afford. You do have to be realistic. Most lenders will require mortgage insurance if you can't come up with the 20% down payment. But most first-time home buyer programs will require 3%. Doesn't have to be all of your own funds. Many of them like FHAA or even VA loan if you are eligible for that, they provide, through financing, et cetera, the mortgage insurance. So it is much more affordable than a conventional loan. Many of your agencies in your area to offer down payment assistance loans. Most of them have started to use the word loan simply because that's what the federal agencies want them to do. In most situations, it will work out to be a grant because that loan probably won't have any payments depending on your income level. And if you keep it X number of years, it is forgiving. But because they get to call it a loan, it works out better in their reporting. You will be subject to income limits. And most nonprofit agencies known as community housing development organizations would be able to help you get through these programs and quite often, the government entities just approve the larger banks, Bank of America, Wells F argo, those type places, they have the authority to go ahead and approve this type assistance without you even going to a second location and having to apply for i t. These do vary greatly in amounts. It depends on your location, how much money they have to spend, -- I am in central Florida and I can tell you, between two counties, it will vary from $5000 to $45,000 in down payment assistance. So that's one of the first things you're going to want to find out. Make sure everything is your c hoice. If they're telling you, you have to go to a certain place, then you want to think twice.