By Megan Sayles
AFRO Business Writer
msayles@afro.com
The Wells Fargo Foundation recently supplied $500,000 in grants to five Washington, D.C. nonprofits as part of a broader effort to address systemic housing challenges in the city. The goal of the funding is to support the creation and preservation of generational wealth through homeownership.
The five organizations included, Building Bridges Across the River, Manna, Latino Economic Development Center, Centro de Apoyo Familiar and DC Affordable Law Firm (DCALF).
“As the Bank of Doing, Wells Fargo is dedicated to developing solutions that increase the supply of homes that are affordable and support families in realizing the dream of homeownership and opportunities for building wealth,” said Victor Burrola, vice president of philanthropy and community impact for Wells Fargo in Washington, D.C. “These grants further demonstrate our dedication to Washington D.C., and our efforts to provide housing affordability solutions to individuals and families across the region.”
DCALF Executive Director Gabby Mulnick Majewski said her organization will use its $100,000 grant to provide free estate planning services to District families.
“At DCALF, we have been really focused on how the free legal services we deliver can expand security for families in a variety of ways,” said Majewski. “One of the key places where we feel our work can be very disruptive and transformational is empowering individuals with proactive estate planning services.”
She explained that this endeavor was driven by the nonprofit’s work in heirs property, which occurs when real estate is inherited by multiple individuals after the owner dies without leaving a will. DCALF is one of the leading organizations for the Department of Housing and Community Development’s (DHCD) Heirs Property Assistance Program, which was launched in 2023. It supports low-income households and individuals in resolving title issues.
“We’re thrilled to be helping families with the very tedious, bureaucratic process of clearing titles and moving through probate, but our belief is that no one should be stuck in the probate system,” said Majewski. “As we’ve expanded our heirs property and probate work, we have been laser focused on finding new outlets and opportunities to reach families with information about estate planning and delivering those services at the key moments when people are thinking about their assets and legacies.”
DCALF will work with the District’s housing counseling services to ensure residents can access these services.
Majewski explained that just 31 percent of people have estate plans. The share is even smaller for African Americans.
“I think that’s often due to the fact that at many points in time in our nation’s history, Black people have been deprived of their property through many systemic, intentional injustices that have been perpetuated. When you compound that with the fact that people don’t like thinking about death, it creates a situation where our Black and Brown families have been that much more vulnerable to tangled titles and a loss of property that can come from a lack of planning,” said Majewski. “Being able to do our part in helping to stem the tide of these horrific losses of property and empower folks with new resources to proactively build the wealth that many White families have been able to do through intentional estate planning is an important mission for us.”
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