FirstBank joins Ponce NHS to provide orientation to Yauco community
Luchetti community residents receive orientation from FirstMortgage employees and FirstBank Insurance. At left: Nancy Negrón, of FirstBank’s community reinvestment department; José L. Pérez, community leader at the Luchetti community and Katherine Cartagena of Ponce NHS.
As a result of Hurricane María’s strike last year, the 135 homes at the Luchetti community in Yauco were completely flooded, and 35 percent of those homes are still inhabitable.
To help provide orientation and technical support to those 35 affected families, FirstBank has joined Ponce Neighborhood Housing Services, the financial institution announced.
Recently, FirstMortgage and FirstBank Insurance employees with expertise in the areas of mortgages and insurance offered individualized advice on insurance coverage against claims, modification of mortgage payments, loss mitigation and prevention of foreclosure to families that required a replacement home to the one they lost (rent or purchase) or that they experienced layoffs and reductions in working hours.
“At FirstBank we have a commitment to continue helping in the recovery of our communities,” said Catherine Ríos, community relations officer at FirstBank.
“These individual orientations to the residents will allow them to learn about the options and opportunities that best suit their needs or situations, to enable them to modify their payments, save their homes or obtain a new safe home,” she said.
Meanwhile, Ponce NHS Executive Director Elizabeth Colón-Rivera said, “Our mission is to strengthen Puerto Rico communities, through community development and empowerment especially in the southern area.”
“With our Housing Counseling and Education Project, we are providing adequate and free counseling to the residents of the Luchetti [community,] which was one of the most affected by the hurricane,” she said.
“We thank the staff of FirstMortgage and FirstBank Insurance, who guided the participating families on how to prevent the foreclosure of their property, identify mitigation services and insurance coverage against disasters,” Colón-Rivera said.
Ponce NHS is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing housing counseling and financial education to low and moderate income families. Its impact area comprises 15 municipalities on Puerto Rico’s southern coast.
