Tarita Gardner is the 17th new homeowner through our Newberry affordable homeownership program! Tarita had been renting the house for 12 years, raising three kids there while working as a phlebotomist for a clinical laboratory. Her monthly mortgage payment of about $510, including taxes and insurance, is about the same as the rent she had been paying.

“I’m so happy about this, now that it’s real!” said Tarita after her closing. “Ownership is very important to me because it lets me know that I’m capable of having something of real value being mine. I’ve worked hard and I feel like I deserve to own. It’s exciting to think that I left home this morning not being a homeowner and I’ll return home being one. There’s many things I want to do to the home to make it mine, like doing a vegetable garden just like my grandmother used to have.”