HAC’s Down Payment Program Helps Working Family

Thanks to HAC’s support, Lashaunda Shepherd was able to spend the holidays with her husband and their two children in a new home.

The Down Payment and Closing Cost Program that HAC administers for Barnstable County is one of the region’s best kept secrets—but it shouldn’t be!

The program uses federal funds to help income-eligible residents become first-time homeowners.

This year, seven HAC clients have been helped through the program, including Lashaunda and Martin Shepherd, a married couple who between them are working four jobs in order to make a living on Cape Cod.

Lashaunda is a rural postal carrier and a certified nursing assistant for two health care agencies and Martin is employed as a floor technician at a local nursing home.

In October, HAC was able to help the couple, who have two children, land the home of their dreams in Hyannis thanks to $5,000 they received from the agency’s Down Payment and Closing Cost Program.

The Shepherds worked closely with HAC Housing Counselor Karin Bar who helps manage the federally-funded program, which provides financial support to income-eligible residents looking to become first-time homeowners, on behalf of Barnstable County.

Without that financial assistance, Lashaunda said. “I don’t think we would have purchased a home… That was a pretty big lifesaver for us.”

The program gives leverage to those like the Shepherds, who had been renting a home in Brewster for the past four years, so they can become homeowners. That is something which has become increasingly difficult in today’s strong housing market. “It is really tough for first-time homebuyers right now,” said Bar.

Still, HAC has been able to assist seven clients this year who have been able to make their dreams of homeownership become a reality. Bar is working with another two currently.

Bar was pleased to see that the Shepherds, who both took HAC’s first-time homebuyer class earlier this year, were among those to benefit from the program.

Now the Shepherds have a home of their own which, “means a lot. It means happiness. It means in the years to come my family can come visit,” said Lashaunda, who is from South Carolina and whose husband is from Jamaica.

Though not originally from here, the Shepherds are proud to call Cape Cod their home “Since I moved here I feel like I’ve been on the right path,” Lashaunda said. “I feel like this would be a perfect place to raise a family. The schools are great. The jobs are great. We are very comfortable here… We love it here on the Cape.”