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.