Carmen Roman of West Trenton knows how to get what she wants, most of the time. All it takes is having a goal and putting in the time and hard work necessary to reach it.
To achieve her dream of opening a children’s community center, this mother of two knew she would need a college degree. So she enrolled at Rider University – despite having to work three jobs to do so.
But Carmen had another goal that seemed out of reach no matter what she did. “I wanted to buy a home, but I didn’t know how,” she recalls. “As a little girl, it seemed automatic. On TV, the Bradys had a house. The Jeffersons had a house.” But as she got older, Carmen came to realize how big and overwhelming the process would be. “Like anybody else, it made me hesitant,” she says.
Carmen isn’t alone. Many families are in the same predicament, and Isles has developed its Individual Development Account (IDA) initiative to provide counseling, training and financial support to families like Carmen’s, who invest in their own future. The initiative encourages families to save by matching a percentage of what they put in the bank. This enables them to accumulate the wealth they need to buy a home, start a business or get a college degree.
For Carmen, having her own home has been a welcome change. “As a renter, I had little control over how and where I lived,” she explains. “I wanted to make a place mine. I wanted to decorate and paint murals on my children’s bedroom walls.”
Through IDA, Carmen has been able to realize her dream of homeownership. “The Isles’ IDA initiative showed me all the steps involved in buying a home,” she said. “Plus they matched my IDA savings, making the down payment easier.”