Home-Buyer Assistance Pioneer’s Tactics Questioned

Much of the scrutiny surrounding home-buyer assistance programs can be attributed to investigations into questionable practices among the people who pioneered the approach, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Don Harris, a Baptist minister who developed the approach of creating charities to provide poor families with the money needed for down payments on homes, received $42-million in fees over six years from the Nehemiah Corporation of America, which he founded to distribute those gifts, the newspaper reports. Mr. Harris declined to comment to the newspaper about his compensation or how his organization operates.

The Internal Revenue Service infuriated many housing groups when it ruled in May that organizations cannot claim charity status if they get most of their money from sellers of homes who benefit from the down payments made by poor people. The IRS has not said whether Nehemiah is one of the groups whose tax status it is reviewing.

(Read The Chronicle’s article on the revenue service’s ruling. A paid subscription is required to view these articles.)