2008 Board of Directors

 

Gabe del Rio, President

Vino Pajanor, Vice President

Charlene Charles Smith, Secretary

Veronica Lagler, Treasurer

Jim Bleisner, Board Member

Dennis Dawson, Board Member

Ralene Friend, Board Member

Yamila Ayad, Board member

Tom Scott, Board Member

2008 Committee Chairpersons:

Pamela Beard: Outreach Committee

Vino Pajanor:  Legal Structure Committee, Enforcement Committee

 Ellen Brown: Training Commitee

Veronic Lagler: Fundraising Committee

Myrna Pascual, Pamela Beard, Yamila Ayad, Charlene Smith, & Veronica Lagler: HOME Clinics

 

HISTORY OF THE HOUSING OPPORTUNITIES COLLABORATIVE

Founder:  Myrna Pascual

In 1997, in the Henry Cisneros administration of HUD, the San Diego Regional Homeownership Partnership was formed, meeting at SANDAG (San Diego Association of Governments) on a quarterly basis. The group discussed needs and concerns. It developed a Homeownership brochure. It developed a separate web page within the SANDAG website. But the meetings stopped in 2000 or 2001. Homeownership advocates still communicated with each other, but there was no formal roundtable of the housing education providers, except for the Fair Housing agencies that met periodically for their regional AI (Analysis of Impediments) formulation and their publishing of a fair housing brochure.

The Housing Collaborative started the Housing Summits that began in 2004. The Fair Housing Council of San Diego sponsored the initial Housing Summits.  In Spring 2005, Vino Pajanor of Higgs Fletcher & Mack invited leaders of the Ethnic Minority Bar Associations of San Diego County to discuss a more coordinated effort to give financial and homebuyer education and to discuss predatory lending.  Coordinated by Myrna Pascual of the San Diego HUD Field Office,  monthly meetings then started to develop a vision and to establish a separate nonprofit organization. Encouraged by various cities, housing counseling agencies, and the San Diego Foundation, the Housing Collaborative formally incorporated in December 2006.  HOC Committees urged more training for the housing counselors, more concerted community education and testing.  The subsequent meetings focused on educating and assisting homeowners. The HOME Clinics(Homebuyer Mobile Education Clinic) started in June 2007 to assist distressed homeowners having problems making monthly mortgage payments.

GOALS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS

  • Maintaining a web site that will contain housing resources and referrals throughout the region
  • Developing brochures, fliers, and other informational publications
  • Keeping an electronic library of publications, news articles, notices, & laws pertaining to housing opportunities
  • Providing community outreach & educational forums, workshops, summits, symposiums relating to housing opportunities (Quarterly housing summits, bi-monthly meetings of the agencies, special workshops on predatory lending and unfair practices)(Intend to write grants for donations for these events)
  • Providing training, capacity building, and financial support to housing counseling agencies, fair housing agencies and homebuyer education providers (Intention to write grants for these)
  • Providing a library of speakers
  • Enabling testing and law enforcement for predatory lending and other unfair practices
  • Maintaining a list of referrals of agencies and professionals
  • Tracking potential home buyers and developing statistical reports
  • Maintaining a list of contact persons participating in the Housing Opportunities Collaborative
  • Conducting HOME Clinics that provide distressed homeowners individual counseling by volunteer attorneys and by HUD approved housing counseling agencies