What Is The Open Hand Initiative?
The Open Hand Initiative is a charitable foundation that provides grants ranging from 1,000 - 5,000 with the goal of helping many more people become homeowners. Through this process we have helped seven people become homeowners. This has been such a rewarding journey.
What’s Our Story?
The Open Hand Initiative was founded by Central Park Mortgage. The Mayor’s office approached us and asked if there’s anything we can think of to increase the rates of black homeownership. Being a black owned business we are passionate about giving you the tools you need to be successful especially under served communities. While there are many down payment assistance programs out there, there’s nothing that specifically helps you to repair your credit or to help you pay off your debt. So we came up with the Open Hand Initiative to help educate the community and help as many people as possible become home owners.
It all begins with an idea.
To buy a home in this competitive market, Coloradans compromise and bring a whole lot of cash
Written By Rachel Estabrook May 9, 2022, 6:10 pm
A program called the Open Hand Initiative provided Valery Keys, a Navy veteran, with a grant to help her buy her first home. The grant helped her pay off old debts, which improved her credit enough that she could close on a home in December 2021. “I have a great kitchen with amazing stainless steel appliances,” she said. “It has a water softener, play areas, it’s just a dream come true.”
Owning is about more than those tangible things, though. “As a divorced single mom, I wanted to finally start earning equity,” Keys said.
For Keys, building that equity means achieving stability. “Part of the American dream is homeownership and owning land – having something that I can pass onto my children,” she said. “But more than that: showing my children [that] if I can do it, they can do it. Showing my children that this isn’t something that’s just for some people, that this is something for us.”
Cleo Lewis, a mortgage broker who helped found the Open Hand Initiative, said the program used all of its seed funding to give out five $5,000 grants in the past six months. The program is raising more money to fund another round of grants.