How LUCHA Helped Roy Secure His Bronzeville Homecoming

Roy and his husband pose with the keys to their new place!

For over a decade, Roy has been turning to his friends at LUCHA when he's ready to find a place to call home. After moving to Chicago from Costa Rica 12 years ago, owning a property of his own seemed like a pipe dream-- but when his sister-in-law introduced him to the homebuying counselors at LUCHA, he realized he might be closer than he thought.

Back in 2015, after taking one of LUCHA's First-Time Homebuyer Workshops and auditing his credit with one of our counselors, he was able to qualify for a mortgage that put hundreds of homes in Chicago within his reach. A condo in Bronzeville caught his eye-- a beautiful place in a neighborhood he loved, recently foreclosed, and priced at only $120,000. The team at LUCHA helped him find down payment relief options, and helped negotiate closing costs.

In the end, he only paid $1,000 from his own pocket before he was able to close. The experience blew Roy away-- he had no idea of the resources available to homebuyers in his city, and he and his husband stayed in a home they adored for over 5 years.

"But then the pandemic hit," Roy told us. "The building was starting to deteriorate and the HOA fees just kept getting higher even though we weren't seeing anything happen to justify it. We had no amenities, nobody was doing the maintenance we needed on the building."

The pandemic years impacted homeowners this way all over the state. Illinois HOA fees rose nearly 30% from 2018 to 2025 despite the "deferred maintenance crisis" that Covid caused, where workers were so limited and supply prices were so high that important home upkeep projects were consistently delayed and often never completed. In 2021, Roy and his husband were forced to put their home on the market.

Around the same time, Roy's mother got sick-- sending him back to Costa Rica to care for her and manage her affairs. When she passed away soon after, he returned to Chicago in grief, and unsure of what to do next. He and his husband rented in Edgewater, but Roy found himself missing his old neighborhood, and longing to put down roots somewhere all his own again.

So, Roy called up Guille, his friend at LUCHA. He explained his situation and she advised him to come to the Homebuyer's Workshop once more, to figure out what his options really were. His credit was still strong, but home prices had skyrocketed since his last purchase, and the down payment was a big barrier.

Within weeks, the team at LUCHA connected him with a down payment relief program that surpassed his expectations. The Chicago HomeGrown assistance program provided him with $70,000 in down payment support, and the bank providing his mortgage offered an additional $20,000. Over a decade after his last time working with LUCHA, he paid only $4,000 out-of-pocket from start to finish to secure his home closing.

"It was amazing," Roy told us. "I feel so lucky. My mom was in heaven helping me and the angels down here on Earth were too. Everyone was so supportive, and now I'm talking to you from the dining room in my new place!" Roy's back in Bronzeville now, the neighborhood that he always felt most at home in.

When we asked Roy how he'd felt the process had changed from a decade ago, he told us how impressed he was that LUCHA made everything feel so doable despite the chaos of the housing market.

"I wasn't expecting it to happen so fast," he said. "My mom passed in June, I came back home, and I closed on my place by September. That only happens when you have good people by you. I don't have the words to say how grateful I am."

Today, Roy feels excited to be back in Bronzeville as it's starting a bit of a renaissance-- the opening of the Obama Center is boosting interest, inviting new business and development nearby. He's thrilled to be in the middle of it all alongside his husband as he gears up for retirement in a few years.

"I'm telling you, I'm gonna volunteer for LUCHA once I'm retired," he told us with a laugh. "I tell people about you all the time! I tell people to just show up to a workshop. Don't be scared, don't be disappointed if your situation doesn't seem perfect. They're going to help you get there no matter what it takes." ■