How NeighborWorks Weeks highlights the long-term impact of stable homes, financial education, and resident leadership
A home can begin as a set of keys.
Over time, it can become stability, confidence, family continuity, and community leadership.
That long-term impact is at the heart of NeighborWorks Week 2026. This year’s theme, “Creating Homes, Building America,” recognizes that housing about what becomes possible for people and places when families have safe, stable, and affordable homes.
Community Ventures sees that impact every day across Kentucky.
Through housing counseling, homebuyer education, affordable lending, down payment support, disaster recovery programs, and long-term community development, we help Kentuckians move from uncertainty toward ownership and from ownership toward deeper participation in the communities they call home.
In Western Kentucky, Jordan Forrester’s path to homeownership began after instability, financial strain, and repeated barriers.
After returning to Fulton and working to rebuild her life, she connected with us through our homeownership and disaster recovery work. Jordan’s effort and interests led her to realize her dreams of homeownership.
Through counseling, education, and support, Jordan moved into a newly constructed home. Her mortgage was only slightly higher than her former rent, and living close to work gave her a new level of stability. Homeownership gives families a place to recover, rebuild, and plan again.
In Jessamine County, Laura Schwarz wanted a safe, energy-efficient home in the school district she chose for her children. We helped her complete homeownership classes, improve her credit, and access tools that made her mortgage affordable.
The result?
- a stable place for her family of four.
- a home in the community she chose.
- a long-term asset she intended to pass down to her children.
In Scott County, Dwunna White’s story carried a similar theme. After divorce, bankruptcy, and years of renting, she believed homeownership might be out of reach. We helped her work through credit counseling, budgeting, and homebuyer education. That support eventually led to the keys to her own home in Georgetown.
Years later, the impact continued!
Dwunna developed lasting pride and confidence of homeownership, and both Dwunna and Laura went on to serve as Community Housing Development Organization board members, paying the opportunity forward by advocating for others.
This is one of the most powerful truths behind NeighborWorks Week:
Housing stability does not stop at the household.
It can ripple into schools, workplaces, neighborhoods, volunteer boards, small businesses, local leadership, and the next generation.
- A stable home can help a child stay in the same school.
- A predictable payment can help a parent budget.
- Home equity can become a tool for education, entrepreneurship, retirement, or generational wealth.
- A resident who receives support can become someone who supports others.
In 2025 alone, we helped create 45 homeowners, counseled 2,466 new homeowners, leveraged more than $4 million in home loans, and loaned nearly $2.5 million for homes.
NeighborWorks Week recognizes the collective work of network organizations across the country. Community Ventures’ Kentucky story shows how that collective mission becomes tangible in the lives of families, homeowners, entrepreneurs, workers, and local leaders.
Creating homes means helping people build stability.
Creating homes means helping families move toward ownership.
Creating homes means helping residents become leaders.
Creating homes means giving communities a stronger foundation for the future.
As NeighborWorks Week 2026 comes to a close, Community Ventures invites Kentuckians to continue following the work beyond this national celebration.
We know that creating homes is daily, disciplined, long-term work of counseling families, financing homes, supporting entrepreneurs, rebuilding after disaster, preserving community character, and helping people move from possibility to permanence.
It is the work of building Kentucky we proudly continue.