Jacksonville, Fla. – Jacksonville resident Rosalyn Reyes was raised in the historic Springfield area as a young girl and has always wanted to return to her old neighborhood for sentimental reasons. Now with the help of Shands Jacksonville’s Employer-Assisted Homeownership Program (EAHP), Reyes is the proud owner of a one-story, three-bedroom home.
“It is a dream come true for me to live in Springfield again where I grew up,” she says. “It’s beautiful now in Springfield and the neighborhood looks like it used to when I was a child.” Reyes is the second employee at Shands Jacksonville to be assisted through a $5,000 soft loan towards the purchase of a home in Springfield.
“Our employees benefit from the program by being helped to achieve the dream of homeownership and by living in a neighborhood accessible to our campus,” comments Ed Roberts, Shands EAHP coordinator. “Shands benefits by improving our ability to recruit and retain employees, improving employee morale and productivity and by demonstrating good corporate citizenship.”
Shands Jacksonville started the EAHP in August of 2000, when the hospital became a part of the Jacksonville Homeownership Alliance Community. At the time, Shands became the first employer in the southeastern United States to provide forgivable loans to its employees. The academic medical center offers a maximum $5,000 soft loan to its full-time employees, forgivable over a five-year period. Each year an employee continues to work full time at Shands Jacksonville, 20 percent of the loan will be forgiven.