|
|
FINDING FREE GRANT MONEY - PAGE 2
There are several places that you can look for free money:
- Federal Government
- State Government
- Local Government
- Foundations
- Non-Profit Organizations
You can use the following example to do your own research.
John and Janet live in Cook County Illinois with their three children. John earns a decent salary from his job; Janet has a full-time job raising their children. They live in a cramped apartment that is too small for five people.
John and Janet would love to have a house of their own, maybe with a small yard where the kids can play. But they have a lot of expenses and haven't been able to save anything for a downpayment. Can they get some free money to put a downpayment on a house? Possibly, but they'll have to do some research to see if such money is available for them.
They start out by looking to see if there is any help from the Federal Government. First they go to the Government Benefits web site. They decide to browse the benefits by category, and select items that relate to housing. A list of housing programs appears, and they can read a summary of each program and the eligibility criteria. Although there are quite a few loan programs on the list, they don't see anything about free downpayment money.
On the same Government Benefits web site, they click on "Locate Benefits by State." Since they live in Illinois, they select that state. There's nothing there of interest to them. But this list of state benefits may not be all-inclusive. They need to check the Illinois State Government website, which they find by doing a Google search on "Illinois State Government."
You can search for your own State Government site here:
On the Illinois State Government website, they have to click around a bit to find information on housing. They find it by clicking on "Living" on the left, and then "Health and Human Services" on the right. On that page, there is a link to another page that has information on housing programs and services. Nothing there on getting money for a downpayment.
Now John and Janet need to see if there are any downpayment assistance programs offered by their Local Government. They go back to the Illinois State Government home page and find a link for "Government" on the left. They click on that link, and on the right side of the page there is a link to County Government. They enter "Cook County," where they currently live. After clicking around a bit more, they find this -- the American Dream Downpayment Initiative. Bingo! After reading about it, they find that they qualify and learn how to get additional info and application instructions.
Admittedly, this has taken some time, but so far it has paid off. And if the web searching gets to be too frustrating, John and Janet can always call the information number for their state and/or local government offices and ask the operator to connect them to someone who can help them find what they are looking for.
But John and Janet don't stop there. There may be other programs out there for them. If they can find more than one, they can compare them and select the one that's best for them. Or if they get turned down for one, they may have other alternatives.
Go to the next page to learn about John and Janet's next steps.
 Go back to the first page of this article.
|
|
|
Free Money Page 2
