The consequence of historical housing discrimination combined with an exclusive housing policy means that families of color simply have no chance of building wealth or helping the next generation with down payments.
CalHFA has been successful with our down payment support program. We also provide graduation assistance for low- and middle-income Californians. These have effectively helped first-time home buyers with more than $ 600 million in the past three years, and given them access to over $ 10 billion in mortgages. In 2020 alone, CalHFA helped more than 9,000 California residents own home, with 68% of whom were families of color.
We also recently launched our add-on unit finance product, which is a grant of up to $ 25,000 to cover upfront development costs. And it's a grant – not a lien on their property like some other programs that have been developed. We target low-income homeowners and low-equity homeowners with the aim of ultimately increasing their equity and providing them with another source of income. It will also help increase the rental housing stock that our country sorely lacks. It is a triple threat.
We started that program with $ 19 million, then Governor Newsom gave another $ 81 million from his California comeback state budget. We now have a total of $ 100 million for these grants and I challenge my team to get that money out as soon as possible.
