New Homestead Owners ... Jake and Suzanne

Jake Gentry and Suzanne Fossum became new homeowners and members of Homestead in November, 2011. Jake and Suzanne heard about Homestead’s program through their ERA Real Estate agent, Sandy Sargent. When Sandy showed them homes on the market in their price range, they found that most of the homes were foreclosures, short sales, bank owned, and much older that what Homestead offered. After meeting with Lindsey, the Homeownership Director at Homestead, Jake and Suzanne felt that this program had the best interest of homeowners in mind. With Homestead’s program, it was possible to move into a nice, beautiful brand new home.

Jake and Suzanne had encountered some challenges trying to purchase a home in the current market. Their greatest hurdle was getting financing without private mortgage insurance (PMI), which is required on high loan-to-value transactions with minimal down payment. There was no way they would be able to afford a house payment with a costly monthly mortgage insurance premium added on. Another concern was the Seattle real estate market, and possibly getting into a home that was not affordable, or that would lose value on at resale. Without Homestead’s program, Jake thought it might take up to 8-10 years to realize the dream of homeownership. We asked Jake, what is the BEST thing about your new home? Jake replied, “I love that we OWN it! We have ownership in the appearance, the quality and the cleanliness of the home. It has truly been a dream come true and we couldn’t have done it without Homestead and their incredible staff!”

Although Jake works full time and Suzanne attends graduate school full time, three years ago they started up their own amazing non-profit called Orphans to Ambassadors after returning from a trip to Africa.

Jake explained to me a little bit about what their non-profit is all about and how they are helping orphans in Africa:

“Orphans to Ambassadors is a small volunteer based nonprofit that we started 3 years ago after multiple visits to Africa, and seeing the deplorable conditions of some of the rural children’s homes in Tanzania. We came back from Africa with a promise that we would do something to ease the suffering of the kids we visited. The mission of the organization is to support rural orphanages and children’s homes in their quest to become more sustainable and self-sufficient. This means installing solar panels to provide electricity to orphanages, or building chicken coups and vegetable gardens to help provide healthy nutritious foods, sustainably. We implement all sorts of sustainable technologies that will assist the orphanage in becoming more self-sufficient, all while teaching the children how to install, operate and maintain the technologies."

Jake also shared his favorite story about his work in Africa with us:

"After we installed a solar power system, built a vegetable garden and chicken coop, and dug a well for an orphanage in Sierra Leone, the director of the orphanage told us the greatest part of our work was us simply showing up. That just by our appearance, the neglected community orphanage was now the reason that foreigners were coming to the small town of Kamakwie, Sierra Leone. We were the talk of the town, and the orphanage was center stage. The kids loved the solar panels and water well, but spending a week with 3 Americans was the real highlight. Once we left, the orphanage became the only place that ANY children from the community could study at night, because of the solar powered lights. Community kids would never visit the orphanage before this."

You can learn more about Orphans to Ambassadors by visiting their website at www.orphanstoambassadors.org.