‘This is our community’: Inside the programs helping college workers with home down payments

Robin Boston wasn’t expecting her job to help her buy a house when she started working for the University of Maryland, Baltimore in 2016. But two years after joining the university’s Office of Philanthropy, Boston bought her first home, less than a mile from the campus. 

The best part? The university made the down payment.

“I must have looked at 20 houses, all in neighborhoods close to the university,” said Boston, an accountant in the university’s Office of Philanthropy. “Some were just too large. Some were too small. I was like Goldilocks.”

Then she found one that was just right, with bedrooms for her children and a backyard. Boston was already pre-approved for a loan and had completed the homeownership counseling program that the university requires. The university paid $16,000 and the city of Baltimore contributed $2,500 towards the down payment as part of its Live Near Your Work program, and Boston signed the contract in May 2018.

Before the move, she lived “maybe three miles from work,” Boston said. “I could walk, but now I’m less than a mile.” 

Boston is among 75 University of Maryland Baltimore employees who have taken advantage of the homeownership incentive program since it launched in 2018. 

Under the terms of the program, the university contributes $16,000 toward the down payment on a home, and the city of Baltimore kicks in up to $2,500. Employees must work at the university at least halftime, select a property in one of nine nearby neighborhoods, and commit to stay in the home for five years.

The average sale price for a home purchased through the program is $192,884.

“Our goals were to revitalize the neighborhoods near the university and offer an awesome benefit to our employees,” said Dawn Rhodes, the institution’s chief business and finance officer and senior vice president. “This is our community, and we care enough that we want to invest in it.”

The University of Maryland Baltimore set aside $2 million for the program in 2018 and has spent $1.2 million so far, according to Rhodes. Five years into the program, university officials celebrated spending the first $1 million and heard employees “talking about the appreciation they’ve seen in the house and the satisfaction of knowing they can pass that wealth on to their families,” she said.

In Baltimore, more than a hundred local employers — including the university— will help employees with the purchase of a home. A city-wide initiative called Live Baltimore helps interested employees get familiar with the area by giving three-hour neighborhood tours. Boston took a tour when she was looking for a home in 2018.

“Some of the brownstone-style houses here are really large,” Boston said. “Some are three floors tall. I got tired just looking at them.”

Buying a home is the biggest investment that most people make. And for many, buying a home leads to putting down deeper roots in their community. The University of Rochester, in New York, launched its Home Ownership Incentive Program in 2008 to build employee retention.

Like the university program in Baltimore, University of Rochester employees must work at least 20 hours a week and agree to live in the home for five years. The New York institution also imposes a household income cap for the program — under $135,000 in 2022.

“We want university employees to continue working for us and build a life here,” said Sara Miller, the university’s associate vice president for public relations. 

As the employer of 30,000 staff and faculty, the university and the city of over 211,000 residents are deeply intertwined, Miller said. “If we can continue this program, it will add to the vibrancy and momentum the city has going right now. It’s one of our contributions to making the area an even stronger place.”

For the program’s first 16 years, the university contributed $9,000 toward down payments or closing costs, and 565 employees purchased homes in a few select neighborhoods of the city.