We had the pleasure of sitting down with Annette Santiago, a HUD-Certified Housing Counselor for Community Action Lehigh Valley (CALV). Annette has been with CALV for 22 years and has extensive experience in the housing and real estate industry. She meets with a diverse range of community members on a weekly basis, providing valuable guidance on financial literacy, budget assessments, foreclosure prevention, pre-purchase education for homebuyers, and more.
Being a Housing Counselor is a specialized role that demands comprehensive housing knowledge, exceptional organizational skills, patience, empathy, and a genuine desire to help the community. Annette embodies all these qualities, making a significant impact on the lives of those she assists.
Q: What are your roles and responsibilities as a HUD-certified Housing Counselor for Community Action?
Annette: “My role as a HUD-Certified (Housing & Urban Development) Counselor is to assist people to obtain homes and to retain their homes. That's very vague, but what we do is a lot of different programs in one program. In one day, you could have four different kinds of appointments. When I started here in 2003, the program was only pre-purchase, so that time consisted of one-on-one appointments, pre-settlement classes, and homebuyer seminars.
The program has evolved over the years, so now I'll sit with someone, and I'll go over their budget with them. I'll pull their credit. I'll see if they're ready to purchase a home. Check their debt, see if they need to cut down on debt. They'd have to do it themselves, but we will discuss it. We do not fix credit, but we give them the tools, which are the letters that you send to the credit bureaus. We explain to them what they need to do to bring up their credit scores for home pre-purchase.”
Q: What inspired you to join Community Action Lehigh Valley? What was your career journey like before becoming a Housing Counselor?
Annette: “Before Community Action, I worked for Pete Ramos in a small real estate office. Before I started selling real estate, I was a Property Manager for 10 years and had 211 units. But one year, I was forced to conduct two evictions with constables. That Christmas Eve prior to me leaving, I had to evict people. They were taking their Christmas trees and their presents, and it was at that point I knew I could not do that job any longer. So, my husband suggested I try real estate. And that's when I changed; I purchased a home and was selling real estate part-time. I went full-time. But life happens and my husband's plant closed, so at that point I needed a position with insurance.
Pete was on the CALV Board and let me know there was a Housing Counselor position open that he thought I’d be perfect for and encouraged me to apply. He didn't realize that when I got the position, I had to give up my real estate license because we were a HUD (Housing and Urban Development) agency at that point. We were receiving funding from HUD and the counties, and we were under the umbrella of PHFA (Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency). So at that point, I had to give up my license because there was a conflict of interest due to the people we were dealing with.”
Q: What do you find most rewarding about your work as a Housing Counselor?
Annette: "What I really like is when people come in and they're ready to purchase - they're happy and they're buying a home and investing in their future. It's very important to me because, as a Latina and coming from the projects, seeing people reach their goals means a lot to me. I like to give people kudos when they do it because it's hard. It's hard work. So that gives me satisfaction. Also, when I save someone's home, that really, really motivates me. There are a lot of different scenarios for each person, and you don't know what you're going to get until they actually sit in your office."
"It's very important to me because, as a Latina and coming from the projects, seeing people reach their goals means a lot to me. I like to give people kudos when they do it because it's hard. It's hard work."
Q: Can you share a memorable success story or experience that you had with someone you were counseling?
Annette: "It was an older lady. She lived in a bed and breakfast; it was also her business. Her husband had passed away. She really wanted to keep it, but she didn't have the means to do so. The house would be worth over half a million dollars if she sold it. I explained to her what she had in front of her. Sometimes, you have to give people the opportunity to say, 'it's okay for me to let go.' It's not a bad thing; sometimes they just have to hear that it’s okay. She needed to hear that from someone, so I told her, "I know you’ve worked hard your entire life.” I told her I’d try to see how long I could keep her in the funding program, but she didn’t qualify for low income due to her equity, so she just couldn’t do it. They wouldn’t modify her mortgage. I let her know that the house was beyond her means and she had so much equity in the house that she could live comfortably. I told her, “I know it's hard, but think about your other options.” And that's what I do, I explain to them all of their other options. If you know deep in your heart that you cannot afford this house, sell it before the bank takes it. I’d rather you leave on your terms.”
Q: How would you say the housing counseling program has evolved over the years since you've been here?
Annette: "I’ve been with Community Action for 22 years. When we started, I was doing one-on-one prepurchase counseling; we did the pre-settlements and the seminars. At that point, we were partners with NeighborWorks in downtown; they did the loans, which was the down payment assistance program. And we did all the counseling for those clients, the ones that were going to pre-purchase or pre-closing. We worked together so there was no conflict of interest because they were handling the money part, and we were doing the counseling. That's when we started doing HEMAP through PHFA. From there, we expanded and included rental counseling under our umbrella.
We used to go to homeless shelters and also visit high schoolers so the kids could learn how to rent an apartment and get ready for adulthood. Some of these kids had children already, and there was a special class we would go to and talk to them about getting ready to move into an apartment.
We also had the tax program, then we added the court program. I went to Philadelphia, checked it out, went to counties, and asked for money. We'd create something with the courts regarding the required documentation. From 2013 to now, I’ve had over 705 clients (just in court)."
Q: What are some of the biggest challenges you face in your Housing Counseling role?
Annette: “With me, there is one main challenge: not to take it home with me. I used to take my job home in the beginning. I have learned not to. When I leave this place, it's my family time. I have learned how to do that. And that's because of the never-ending to-do list. As soon as I walk in, I open up my e-mail, boom, boom, boom, phone calls. I could be meeting with four different kinds of appointments that day. I could do a one-on-one, I could be in court, I could do a loss mitigation. I could be teaching financial fitness.”
Q: How do you feel the Housing Counseling Program impacts our local community? Why do you think housing programming is so important?
Annette: "Our program is very important. People might not think so because they don't know what it is. The only way you would understand the importance of our roles is by going to the institutes and seeing counselors from all over the United States, not just Pennsylvania. From Alaska to Puerto Rico to New Mexico, you see that we are all doing the same thing and have similar experiences. It’s awesome. So yes, what we do is very important because there's no other person out there who really knows how to assist someone with completing a loan modification. It's very specific. It's not a lot of stuff, but people do not understand the process. People go to court, but they're doing it themselves. If you’re at that point, you need assistance and that's why you were sent to us.”
Q: How do you stay motivated and passionate about your work, especially during increasingly challenging financial times?
Annette: "What keeps me going is that, I may not know a lot, but I know some, and if I can help somebody, that's what I'm here for. That's my goal. I'm not a nurse or a doctor; I can't save a life that way, but I can save a home.
"I'm not a nurse or a doctor; I can't save a life that way, but I can save a home."
Q: How have you collaborated with other team members and departments within Community Action Lehigh Valley?
Annette: "We’ve worked with Sixth Street Shelter and their Turner Street Apartments working on rental counseling. We would help them get ready and get their vouchers to be good tenants and to see where their credit was and what issues they had to fix. Because even though you get a voucher, you still need to turn your electricity on, you still need all your other utilities, and your credit is very important for you to obtain those services."
Q: What advice would you give to someone interested in getting involved in nonprofit or housing counseling programs?
Annette: "You need to be patient. You need to take it day by day. You will be learning every day because the industry evolves and evolves and evolves. You may know one thing about PHFA, but the next day it’s changed. It just evolves and you have to keep on learning and be patient.
It's a very specific field. They would need to know the industry a little bit to know if they want to do it. That's why, for me, it worked because I did property management, so I knew what people wanted when they were renting, and I knew what they wanted when they were purchasing. I’ve dealt with people on both sides. I also knew a little bit of what I needed to do because I dealt with HUD. I would say consider becoming a rental agent or if you really want to become a housing counselor, come and volunteer with us and see what we do."
Q: In what ways has working with Community Action influenced your personal and professional growth?
Annette: "My growth here has come from so many different programs. From doing pre-purchase to foreclosure and everything in between, and the Financial Fitness classes we had to take and the rental classes that I became certified in. I feel I have learned so much in 22 years from experience through my day-to-day actions, being on TV, being on the radio, and being out in the community. Working for this agency has been my heart. It took me out of my sheltered life and brought me out into the world."
Q: How can the community best support the efforts of our Housing Counseling program and Community Action as a whole?
Annette: "Donate, donate, donate. Get involved. That's it."
To learn more about Community Action's Housing Counseling program, sign up for upcoming First-Time Homebuyer Seminars, or learn more about our pre-purchase counseling and foreclosure prevention services, please visit our Housing Counseling page. Thanks for reading!
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