Commitment to Affordable Housing

Washington Mutual has been deeply involved in community housing since its inception in 1889. In fact, one of the main reasons Washington Mutual was founded was to provide lending to rebuild Seattle neighborhoods and communities after the devastating fire of 1889 which destroyed a large part of Seattle.

Washington Mutual’s commitment to helping communities and to helping lower-income neighborhoods become stronger and more secure has never wavered. Today Washington Mutual is not only one of the most aggressive lenders to those of low to moderate income, and even has a program to make home loans to people with credit ratings that most other lending institutions would not touch, Washington Mutual also makes grants and outright gifts of millions of dollars to make long-term affordable housing available to those of moderate to low-income. These grants contribute to the construction of hundreds of housing units each years as well as the refurbishing to housing that has fallen into disrepair.

One of the programs that Washington Mutual donates millions in cash grants to is NeighborWorks and its ancillary programs, Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation and Neighborhood Housing Services of America.

NeighborWorks is a national network with more than 230 community-chapters all across the country which brings together residents, business, government and others with the goal of working together to clean up, revitalize and strengthen communities. The Neighborhood Housing Service of America provides additional funding and other types of assets for communities that find themselves in economic or social decline for one reason or another. The Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation is a non-profit organization created by Congress. It provides financial support and technical assistance for community revitalization efforts.

These are just some of the many community-based organizations to which Washington Mutual donates millions of dollars annually in its never-ending drive to build new housing, refurbish older housing and to revitalize our neighborhoods.