Home Ownership and Mortgage Expansion (HOME) Program Quarterly Report [Q2 FY 2016]

The program is a collaborative effort between the World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The program's objectives are to build or improve houses for target Haitian households through finance tools and products offered by HOME, and to encourage Participating Financial Intermediaries (PFIs) to issue housing finance loans to target groups of Haitian households. The HOME program has developed a strategy to catalyze and incentivize the supply and demand sides of the housing value chain to create affordable housing. The program has identified a number of fundamental constraints in Haiti's housing delivery system, including unclear property rights and severe poverty, which cannot be overcome in the short- or medium-term. To address these constraints, the program is working to unlock the liquidity in the Haitian banking sector, mitigate risk for participating financial institutions, and enable low, moderate, and middle-income Haitian households to gain affordable access to housing. The program has made significant progress in its first year, with a total of 16 activities funded through the HOME Facility fund. The program has also achieved results, with a Facility expenditure of USD 13,600 mobilizing USD 234,000 of private capital for housing finance loans. By the completion of this activity, HOME will have contributed USD 94,000 while over USD 1.3 million of private capital will have been leveraged. The HOME program works on both the supply and demand sides of the housing value chain. Through the HOME Facility fund incentives, WOCCU will mobilize the Haitian financial sector and property developers towards a larger market for housing finance products and infrastructure. The program has subgranted to two of the "fast-track" partners, SOGESOL and SOCOLAVIM, under the HOME Facility fund, totaling USD 216,000. These activities are designed to incentivize Haiti's largest microfinance institution and second-largest credit union to grow their number of housing finance loans and make more loans to women-led households through subawards structured around pay for performance (P4P). The program has also made progress in its domestic resource mobilization efforts, with a focus on testing the most effective ways to achieve the USG housing strategy in Haiti while minimizing USG resources and maximizing private sector ones. This approach has already shown promising results, with a Facility expenditure of USD 13,600 mobilizing USD 234,000 of private capital for housing finance loans. The HOME program has a number of key indicators that measure its progress and success. These indicators include the number of households that have built or improved their homes through the program, the number of housing finance loans issued by PFIs, and the amount of private capital mobilized through the program. The program also has a number of cross-cutting themes that are critical to its success, including the need to address the root causes of poverty and inequality in Haiti, and to promote sustainable and inclusive economic growth. Overall, the HOME program is making significant progress in its efforts to provide affordable housing to low, moderate, and middle-income households in Haiti. The program's focus on domestic resource mobilization and its use of innovative financing mechanisms have shown promising results, and the program is well-positioned to achieve its objectives and make a lasting impact in Haiti.