Housing counselors work with individuals and families on a full-spectrum housing needs – helping the homeless to find housing, helping to find an apartment, helping to buy a home, learn budgeting, finding assistance for deposits, refinancing mortgages, credit building, and more. While FIRM has provided housing counseling from its very earliest days, becoming a Certified HUD housing counseling agency is an important step in expanding these services in the Central Valley, and especially among the refugee communities who have large numbers of people needing the services.
An investment from the national Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development (CAPACD) funded technical assistance providers, and FIRM has been engaged for over two years in the process of becoming certified through the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). This is a rigorous process that requires demonstration of ability to provide housing counseling, extensive training and passing exams. This process makes the individual housing counselors and the organization experts in their field.
Once a certified, the organization will receive funding from HUD to be able to provide housing counseling, as well as referrals for those needing service. This funding will help sustain the housing counseling work that FIRM has done for a very long time.
Paying Her, FIRM’s lead housing counselor, and Executive Director Zack Darrah recently participated in a week-long training as a part of moving toward being certified. The training was coordinated by Hawaii and Community Assets, a HUD certified housing counseling agency in Hawaii that has been providing housing counseling for over two decades. This training was held at United Cambodian Community (UCC) in Long Beach.
There is only one other HUD certified housing counselor agency in the Central Valley, and that organization primarily works with the Hispanic community. Becoming HUD certified will elevate FIRM’s credibility not just in the Central Valley, but nationally as well.
While Paying and Zack still must pass exams, it is anticipated that HUD certification will be received and services will start under that certification on October 1 at the start of the new federal fiscal year. FIRM will work in partnership with National CAPACD as their sponsored intermediary, which connects FIRM closely to 20 additional Housing Counseling agencies throughout the United States.