Renting Partnerships challenges the exclusive rights of property owners to build wealth by owning and controlling real estate. Our mission is to develop and own housing as a means for renters to participate in cooperative management, keep their payments affordable and build financial credits.
This pioneering model, Rental Equity, overcomes barriers to wealth building for low income households by not requiring individual mortgages. The nonprofit organization, Renting Partnerships, owns the housing and sustains a unique management system. Leases contain agreements to meet monthly, take part in upkeep and stay at least five years. These actions mitigate expenses in the typical rental housing budget for vacancy and turnover. The savings is used to fund financial credits. Because residents do not have to buy and sell units to build financial equity, they can stay long term, invest themselves in their community and experience transformative growth: physically, intellectually, spiritually, and economically.
We need an alternative form of ownership that allows lower income households to remain in existing neighborhoods, invest in their housing and build financial equity. Renting Partnerships was founded for this.
Black households have about 1/10th the net worth of white households. One of the primary reasons is that their median household income is not enough to buy a home that will appreciate in value. The median income of black households is about $35,000 less per year than the median income of white households. The racial wealth gap is growing because there is no alternative to homeownership which allows households to build financial assets.
Renting Partnerships is a nonprofit (501.c.3) that acquires and rehabilitates housing to create Rental Equity and to combat "gentrification." We hold the housing in trust for the community so that residents can build financial equity by staying long term and taking care of their housing, rather than buying and selling property. Because vacancy and turnover is low, money budgeted for these expenses can be reserved and used to make payments to residents.
Each household earns credits according to a predetermined schedule in the lease. Credits are earned every month that residents pay rent on time, attend the management meeting and complete work assignments. The credits grow up to $10,000 every ten years and can be used to pay rent, freeing up income for other uses, after five years.
Income and Wealth disparities between black and white households
Compare to Owning & Renting
Opportunities & Challenges
Renting Partnerships creates economic opportunities which don't exist for people in either traditional ownership or rental housing. By providing long term leases and a cooperative management system that makes management more efficient, we create a path to building financial assets. Current public policies focused on creating affordable housing units are not addressing the economic inequities that fuel the need for housing subsidies.