Dear Friends, As you know, six years ago a small group of people in Corvallis, Oregon joined together to create A Home In Community, a nonprofit organization that has the goal of promoting inclusive communities. Through AHIC, people who are physically disabled and low-income can have the opportunity to benefit from the joys of cohousing, where people live in community with one another. Our first project, A Home at CoHo, is an ADA-accessible condominium unit at CoHo Ecovillage in Corvallis. Mike Volpe, who has had multiple sclerosis for over 35 years, is our first renter. Thanks to generous support from the Corvallis community and others across the country, we were able to purchase the CoHo unit in October 2007 and Mike moved in the following month. In addition to donations, we received loans from the OSU Federal Credit Union, the City of Corvallis, and private individuals. Our commitment since then has been to raise the funds needed to pay off these loans so that we can guarantee that this home will be permanently available as an affordable rental to Mike and those who follow him. We are also interested in encouraging new cohousing communities to consider accessibility and visitability in their planning. Towards that goal, we are pleased to report that we have completed an extensive update of our website, making it easier to navigate and providing many more resources to other communities, thus extending our impact. It has been an exciting year for us. Thanks to your support during last year’s Annual Appeal, plus monthly pledges and our annual fundraiser, we were able to reduce our debt by approximately $13,000 in the last twelve months. We are absolutely delighted to report that the balance due on our loans is now just $35,500! When we originally purchased the unit, we borrowed a total of $126,000. So, AHIC has already repaid 72% of the money we had originally borrowed (in addition to making a $90,000 down payment at the time of purchase). Also, more than half of the money we originally borrowed had a 7.5% interest rate but approximately two-thirds of the money we currently owe is now at a 4% interest rate from a private supporter, and the remainder is at 0% interest rate from the City of Corvallis. If our current level of support continues, we can expect to be completely debt free by the end of 2015! At that point, we will truly have met our goal of having the unit secured as an affordable rental in perpetuity. We’re also very proud to announce that we have just won a Top-Rated Award from GreatNonprofits for the second consecutive year! Please remember that every dollar you give goes directly to the project. We are a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with a volunteer working board; we have no expenses for staff, office or telephone. So many organizations have a large pool of funders. We do not. We are therefore asking each of you to look into your hearts and your finances to see if you are comfortable making a tax-deductible donation during this 2013 Annual Appeal. Donations may be sent to the address below and are also welcome on-line at AHomeInCommunity.org. Each gift means so much. With heartfelt thanks, Debby Vajda, President, A Home in Community
Posted on: Wed, 04 Dec 2013 23:15:43 +0000
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