PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — As homeownership remains out of reach for many families, a Quaker congregation in Philadelphia’s Germantown neighborhood is investing in a reparations initiative aimed at helping African American families purchase homes and preserve housing wealth.
One beneficiary is Charmira Pilgram, who recently moved into a home in West Oak Lane with her husband and their five children.
“We are in front of my very own property!” Pilgram said.
Pilgram said owning a home had been a longtime goal.
“To have my own property has been a long time coming. It’s something we dreamed up for many years,” she said.
The purchase nearly fell through, however, when she was unable to come up with the money needed to close on the home.
“I didn’t have the $10,000 that I needed for the closing, and it was crunch time,” Pilgram said.
Assistance came through the reparations work of Green Street Monthly Meeting, a Quaker congregation in Germantown.
The congregation has committed $500,000 to reparations efforts, according to Lucy Duncan, founder of the congregation’s Reparations Committee.
“We wanted to understand how we could use our resources in alignment with our values, especially our racial justice commitments,” Duncan said. “We came to unity to make this commitment of $50,000 a year for ten years.”
The initiative began in 2022. Recently, the congregation provided $50,000 to the nonprofit birdSEED, which focuses on down payment assistance and housing justice.
The funding will provide five families with grants of $10,000 each to help them purchase homes.
In addition to down payment assistance, the congregation has supported efforts to help people at risk of losing longtime family properties because of tangled titles.
“We stabilized $11.3 in housing wealth,” Duncan said.
Duncan said the reparations initiative reflects the complex history of Quakers, who were both enslavers and abolitionists.
“When people say reparations are impossible, it’s like, no, look here!” she said.
For Pilgram, the assistance represents more than a successful home purchase.
“I know long term we’ll have generational wealth for our family,” she said.
Looking ahead, she said she is focused on the future the home will provide.
“I’m just excited for the future that our family will have in this home,” Pilgram said.
As part of its reparations work, Green Street Monthly Meeting has also contributed $50,000 to causes associated with Black maternal health.
Congregation leaders say the effort has inspired other Quaker congregations to develop their own reparations programs.
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