This past spring, FHLBank Topeka launched a new down payment assistance grant called Homeownership Possibilities Expanded -- also known as HOPE.

But that’s more than just an acronym to the mortgage team at Centris Federal Credit Union in Omaha, Nebraska. As a member sponsor, the new grant they offered residential customers brought those four letters to life.

“We had one story with HOPE this year that was touching to everybody on the team,” said Heidi Weeks, vice president of real estate at Centris Federal. “We had a member who in the past had personal trouble with addiction, and it caused him to lose his job, his home, everything.”

The member, Heidi said, moved into a local shelter called the Siena Francis House for a 30-day stay. Before those 30 days were finished, he joined their rehabilitation program and committed to sobriety.

Now, more than 10 years later, he’s more than 10 years sober and even works for the same shelter that helped him reclaim his life.

“He was committed to being a homeowner. It was one of the things he was working toward,” Heidi said. “We were able to get him a $12,500 HOPE grant to help make his homeownership dream come true. It was a neat feeling that, yes, we can have bad things happen. But if you turn yourself around and you make the right choices, good things happen too.”

HOPE was in its inaugural year in 2024, part of three grant programs in FHLBank Topeka’s new TurnKey suite of down payment assistance products. The grant was designed to reach “the missing middle,” which is the population of homebuyers who based on income and other factors would not otherwise qualify for assistance but are still in need of support to make homeownership accessible and affordable.

Through HOPE, members can provide grants of up to $12,500 to households with incomes up to 150% of the area median income, which is a higher threshold than the other TurnKey grants. It also has no requirement for first-time homebuyer status.

Those two aspects of the grant proved to be in high demand as more than $4 million in HOPE funds were fully reserved in March only two weeks after the application round opened.

“As a credit union, affordable housing is one of our big goals. We’re really trying to help more people because more people are struggling,” Heidi said. “We’re super thankful that the Federal Home Loan Bank has programs like this that make the homeownership dream easier to reach.”