JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A day after the Jacksonville City Council restored nearly $5 million in funding toward affordable housing, the charitable wing of a local real estate company stepped up to help aspiring homeowners reach that goal.<\/p>\n
The charitable arm of JWB Real Estate Companies, JWB Cares Foundation<\/a>, awarded $20,000 to eight finalists to help them achieve their slice of the American dream — homeownership. <\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n An award ceremony was held for recipients on Wednesday morning at Sweet Pete\u2019s Candy, across the street from Jacksonville City Hall. <\/p>\n Kristin Bradley, a mom of three, was among the chosen ones who received the sweet news inside Sweet Pete\u2019s. JWB Cares\u2019 Welcome Home Fund award will help make her a first generation homebuyer. <\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to win mostly for stability. I\u2019ve been working and renting for the past 6 to 8 years trying to save up for that down payment. It\u2019s just been really hard,\u201d Bradley said. <\/p>\n RELATED: Jacksonville City Council approves $2B budget ordinance in 18-1 vote<\/a><\/p>\n JWB manages 5,700 rental homes in Jacksonville, the lion\u2019s share of which is considered affordable housing.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, it\u2019s a little counterintuitive right. We\u2019re a rental company that is helping people purchase homes, I think because we\u2019re grounded in the city and we believe in housing,\u201d Melissa Gillispie, Chief Operating Officer for JWB, said.<\/p>\n JWB Cares gets its cash flow from annual donations and proceeds from a yearly golf tournament.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n \u201cI think $20,000 really puts you in a position to potentially not have to bring any cost at closing,\u201d Gillispie said. <\/p>\n The recipients got their award the morning after Jacksonville City Council approved $4.9 million in funding toward down payment assistance, something Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan championed.<\/p>\n \u201cI really wasn\u2019t sure we were gonna get the votes,\u201d Deegan said Tuesday night. <\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n As the future looks up for Bradley and family, they recognize the struggle that so many still endure.<\/p>\n \u201cWorking every day, trying to put a couple dollars in the tank so you can get to work and trying to make enough to pay your bills, like I said it\u2019s hard for everybody,\u201d Bradley said. <\/p>\n JWB also allows its renters to contribute $100 per month with a maximum of $3,600, toward a future down payment.<\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A day after the Jacksonville City Council restored nearly $5 million in funding toward affordable…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1602,81265,7897,1579,558,162221,6036,3974,2152,16903,740,76202,1089,741,15032,195,32113,15035,320,2388,5052,1644,1724,735,116,118,117,555,21986,31767,8533,162222,60236,28972,15038,196,59410,18074,481,721,8600,1800,6551,504,963,1184,15443,30305,2015,11363,96817,5518,25120],"class_list":["post-408430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-architecture","tag-asset","tag-banking","tag-building","tag-business","tag-buying","tag-care","tag-concept","tag-development","tag-domestic","tag-economy","tag-estate","tag-family","tag-finance","tag-financial","tag-future","tag-hands","tag-holding","tag-home","tag-homeowner","tag-house","tag-housing","tag-investment","tag-investor","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-living","tag-loan","tag-market","tag-miniature","tag-model","tag-modern","tag-mortgage","tag-opportunity","tag-ownership","tag-planning","tag-property","tag-protection","tag-purchase","tag-realestate","tag-residence","tag-safety","tag-savings","tag-security","tag-shelter","tag-stability","tag-support","tag-top","tag-trust","tag-view","tag-wealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}