The Wyoming Community Foundation recently awarded nearly $5,000 to the Wyoming Family Home Ownership Project through its Working for Wyoming Unrestricted Endowment Fund.

The WYFHOP is based in Cheyenne and is fiscally sponsored by the Wyoming Housing Network. It is a “first of its kind real estate initiative that fosters home ownership and leadership opportunities as a strategy to move lower income working families with children out of poverty and towards self-sufficiency,” said Terry Williams, the program director.

Buying a home can be “quite a feat” for some of these families, Williams said.

After completing 10 weeks of finance and budgeting classes, families chosen to participate in the program begin a two-year savings program. The families are expected to save at least $100 a month, and their savings are matched on a $6.50 to $1 basis by local faith communities, business partners, the Wyoming Women’s Business Center, and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle.

By the end of the savings program, the families will have $18,000 to use for a down payment on a home, as well as for home maintenance costs.

The grant from the Wyoming Community Foundation was made through unrestricted funds. As Press Stephens, the development director of the WYCF, explained, “Unrestricted assets and donations to the Community Foundation’s 11 unrestricted Funds are incredibly important because they allow us to evaluate the state’s most pressing issues and give grants to alleviate Wyoming’s ever-changing needs.”

Williams said that the WYFHOP will use the WYCF grant money in two ways: First, the WYFHOP will recruit a second group of eight to 12 families to participate in the program.

Second, the organizations will use funds to reach out to more communities. Williams said he would like to see the WYFHOP operating in five more communities around the state by 2009, and in yet another five communities by 2010.

To learn more about the WYFHOP, call Terry Williams at 307-287-0540.