LAKEWOOD, NJ - It was an hour and a half in, and Stacy Pringle, 22, sitting in the back, couldn't hear the numbers over the tetchy whimpers of her two young daughters, who were hanging onto her pant legs. "Did they just call 450?" she asked those around her. Getting no more than a shrug and a couple of tentative nods, the petite single mother, looking a bit weary, made her way to the front rows and asked again: "Does anyone know if they called 450?" A man from OceanFirst Bank scanned the list he was keeping on a piece of scrap paper. "Yes, there it is," he said. Pringle's hand went to her mouth. "Oh my God," she said.
The young medical assistant held one of the 72 lottery numbers picked Wednesday from a pool of 512; it grants her first dibs on a new four-bedroom townhouse at a price she can for the first time afford. "Now they can actually have room to play," Pringle, who currently rents a small two-bedroom place in Lakewood, said of her daughters, 4 and 5. "I can't believe it."
A couple hundred like her, aspiring first-time homeowners with lower incomes and growing families, came to Town Hall in the hopes of capturing a spot in the 72-unit complex going up off Vine Street. It is thought to be the first time in Lakewood's history that a development was being built solely for affordable housing. It is also the first phase of a 400-unit master plan that, if realized, could be the largest of its kind in the state.
The significance did not go unnoticed among residents in the more modest income brackets. By the end of a tireless two year-advertising period, 852 families had braved a daunting application process to qualify for the lottery. Indeed, some, like Maria Rivera, 25, thought the process was complicated to the point of being biased. "I don't know why it was so hard," the single mother of two said. "I just kept getting the runaround."
Yet a look around the room Wednesday evening appeared to dispel any immediate suspicions of foul play. Anxious Hispanic, black and Orthodox Jewish hopefuls made for a diverse crowd. The lottery itself resembled a night of bingo: the round cage churning wooden balls, an announcer calling out a letter-number combination, the occasional screech from a winner in the audience. Georgette Holden, 45, had the first number called. She shot up, waving her hand. "That's me, whoa, that's me!"
Later, after recuperating, the ShopRite stocker put her luck in perspective: "I've never been a homeowner. The way the economy is now, many people are losing their homes and I'm able to get one, I'm blessed." Yet winning in the lottery brings the families only half way to ownership. The next, and perhaps bigger, challenge is getting the bank's approval. "OK, you've been picked, now can you afford the mortgage," Wachovia district loan manager John Kaba said.
To prevent a lot of rejections, Kaba said his bank has come prepared with pre-approvals and more-flexible mortgages. He and other bank representatives were passing around fliers Wednesday night that read, "The dream of owning a home is closer than you think." Kaba admits that the recent tightening of subprime lending practices has made it harder to buy a house than a year ago, but said it's still possible to "purchase a home with $500 in your pocket."
Louis Figueroa, 35, an oil truck driver for Point Bay Fuel, said he was reassured by an OceanFirst representative that his credit was good enough to afford one of the townhouses. So when he and his family heard their number called, the pregnant mother, Maria Ruiz, 32, could say with some certainly, "We made it," while wiping her eyes.
The family of four could move as soon as June 1 from their rented one-bedroom in Toms River to fou
Source: APP.com