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Symone Crawford
Executive Director, Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance
Industry experience: 18 years
For the first time in three decades, the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance has a new executive director. After longtime leader Thomas Callahan retired from the homeownership advocacy group at the end of 2021, Symone Crawford took over the top role in January.
Crawford, who was born in Jamaica and came to the United States in 1999, began working at MAHA in 2018, but her history with the organization goes back about 20 years. After someone recommended she take a homeownership class through MAHA, Crawford purchased her first home. The class to this day introduces homebuyers to advocacy and grassroots community organizing, Crawford said, and she began volunteering with MAHA in 2004. She spent six years on MAHA’s board before joining the staff as director of homeownership operations.
Q: What has it been like to take over for someone who held the role for so long?
A: It has been humbling, and frightful [laughs]. It kind of boosts my confidence that both Tom and the board saw the impact that I could have as the next executive director for this amazing organization. I’ve learned a lot during the time that I’ve been at MAHA before I stepped into this role. Tom has been a great mentor and friend throughout the entire transition process.
Q: What are your some of your goals as executive director?
A: Our mission is about breaking down barriers that first-time, first-generation potential homebuyers face, and it has not changed with me at the helm. Our main goal is to close the racial homeownership gap and close the racial wealth gap. Massachusetts has one of the widest wealth and homeownership gaps in the country, and it is not getting better even though we have spent almost 40 years working on this specific issue. It has gotten worse.
The biggest impact banks could have is to offer the mortgage products that give people the most buying power.
We have to make sure that we are more intentional by trying new ways to achieve this mission. My goal is to try not to settle for the status quo, try my best to understand that you can’t continue to do things the same way and expect a different result. That’s a quote that I live by. I just want to make sure that we are innovative. We’re looking for different ways to make sure that we have systems in place that have the impact we desire so that low- to moderate-income individuals – individuals that have been left behind for decades – can access affordable, sustainable homeownership opportunities in and around the state.
Q: In terms of innovation, have you seen anything that could make a difference?
A: There is one particular program that MAHA launched in 2019 called STASH – Saving Toward Affordable Sustainable Homeownership. This program is a first-generation matched savings program, and it was made possible through the Boston Children’s Hospital Collaboration for Community Health grant. The difference with this program from any other down payment and closing cost assistance program is the fact that we are targeting first generational buyers, which means their parents did not own a home, so they could not take some investment out of a home to help them with a down payment and closing costs.
We’re trying to scale this program statewide. We have a minimal amount of individuals that have accessed the program, but the city of Boston has seen the merits of this program. Right now, we are trying to increase the match, and we want to serve more people across the state – anywhere from 1,000 to 1,300 people, if we’re able to get more funding from the state.
Q: What are some other barriers that need to be addressed to give more people access to homeownership?
A: Student loans are a huge issue for young professionals. We are seeing more and more young professionals that are leaving college with high student loan debt, getting a job that doesn’t correlate with the cost of the education and then having a difficult time trying to purchase a home because of the burden that debt carries with it. Also, in this current market, there are no homes out there, so the purchase price is a huge deterrent. There are a lot of bidding wars going on; there are a lot of investors that are competing with a first-time homebuyer.
We also have certain systems in place, such as credit scoring and the impact that a credit score has based on your race. These are issues that are still happening, and we have to figure out a better way to make sure that those individuals that have credit scoring issues can get over that barrier in a better way. I think the credit scoring system is broken and needs to be fixed. I don’t know how we will get through that process, but it needs to be fixed.
Q: What would you like to see from the banking and lending industry to address barriers?
A: In this state, we are very fortunate to have certain first-time homebuyer products that are actually helping low- to moderate-income individuals get into homes: the ONE Mortgage or ONE+Boston products [which offer lower interest rates than other loans and do not require private mortgage insurance], the MassHousing product and then FHA. Lenders need to be able to embrace the fact that we have these products, and they should be able to offer them to the buyers that need them the most. But some of them do not want to do that. They refuse to make the effort to offer those programs, especially the larger lenders.
Q: Is there anything you’ve seen lenders do on their own to try to address this?
A: Almost all lenders have some portfolio loans on their books that seek to have the same impact as ONE, ONE+, MassHousing. If you take a look at the portfolio loans and match it up with ONE or ONE+, it doesn’t match up. They’re trying. They’re offering other products and offering some down payment and closing cost assistance. But I think the biggest impact that they could have is to utilize the products that give people the most buying power.
Crawford’s Five Favorite Dishes to Cook
- Brown stewed snapper
- Rice and peas with fried chicken
- Ackee and salt fish with fried dumplings
- T-bone steak with broccoli and potatoes
- Jamaican fruit cake
