UMB breaks lending mold with low-interest loans

“It’s a great program,” said O’Neill, who as a city employee qualified for assistance through the City of Springfield Employer Assisted Homeownership program. “We recommend it to anyone who asks us about it.”

The local programs, which garnered Springfield Business Journal Economic Impact Awards recognition as Innovator of the Year in July, were inspired by programs UMB has administered elsewhere.

UMB’s programs, through a partnership with Springfield’s Urban Neighborhoods Alliance, are:

• Below Market Home Improvement, which has loaned $206,000 to refurbish 20 homes.

• Employer Assisted Homeownership, which has loaned $55,800 to 11 city employees.

• Contractors Rehabilitation, which has loaned $654,000 to gut and rebuild 11 homes.

All three are meant to revitalize center-city neighborhoods and increase homeownership.

Now, the city of Carthage and other municipalities are establishing their own programs, modeled after Springfield’s success.

Bill Owen, south central region executive vice president for UMB, said the bank has loaned more than $915,000 for the revitalization of 42 center-city homes and may reach the $1 million mark within 60 days.

“You don’t want to have dilapidated neighborhoods for people to drive through to come down to use the civic facilities or the downtown restaurants and other retail, commercial facilities,” he said. “You want nice neighborhoods for people to drive through. It has a spillover effect to the other two.”

‘Nuts about our house’

Recipient O’Neill, superintendent of the solid waste division of the city’s Public Works Department, said he was excited to take advantage of the Employer Assisted Homeownership program to move downtown.

“We are just nuts about our house,” he said.

O’Neill said he and his wife, Pat, left a 12-year-old four-bedroom house near the intersection of Republic Road and National Avenue in October 2003 for a 1937 bungalow of the same size on Washington Avenue near Drury University.

“We wanted to get into a more urban setting,” said O’Neill, whose city office is downtown. “I’m really spoiled. I can walk or ride my bike to work.”

Under the program, O’Neill received $5,000 with no interest from UMB. He said he won’t have to pay a penny of the money back if he stays employed with the city for five years.

Smith, a microbiologist with the Springfield-Greene County Health Department, got the same deal for her 50-year-old Page Street home, which she has owned for about 12 years.

She said she couldn’t have afforded to replace her roof, fascia or gutters without the money.

“My home was in desperate need of repair, and it just worked out as a handy way to do it,” she said.

Carthage’s program

Carthage is mirroring Springfield’s Below Market Home Improvement program, which loans money at about 3 percent interest but has income restrictions. For example, Owen said, a family of four would have to make about $60,000 or less.

Chad Wampler, Carthage’s director of Public Works, said the city has $5,000 earmarked for its program with hopes to have three or four restoration projects going by summer.

“The city’s really excited about it,” Wampler said. “We’re hoping that next year we continue it and even grow the program even further.”

Owen said other cities are coming on board but declined to disclose which ones. He said none are in southwest Missouri but that one is in central Missouri, still within his region.

UMB’s Owen said the programs fulfill both regulatory and moral obligations for the bank.

“It allows us to show the breadth and the depth of our organization,” he said.