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HOUSING COUNSELING

Building Community. Growing Leaders.

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Our Housing Counseling Division provides various individual counseling program services and group workshops for homeowners. The foreclosure prevention counseling program staff help owners to stay in their homes, negotiating with mortgage companies. Also, the Homeowner Help Desk program counselor assists local homeowners who are struggling with the high cost and challenges of maintaining small homes by providing information and connections to projects and resources. Additionally, the division offers the financial literacy counseling and education program to consumers who are looking to increase savings, reduce debt, improve credit scores and achieve financial goals. We are currently providing a specialized counseling program for senior (62+ years) citizen renters. Recently, the division has incorporated the Tenant Counseling and organizing program as well. 

Click the Orange boxes or scroll below to read more about our programs. 

 

Contact us with any questions! 

Rene Arlain

Director of Housing Counseling
Housing Counseling
3214 Fulton Street,
Brooklyn, NY 11208

renea@cypresshills.org

(718) 647-8100

East New York Homeowner Help Desk

NEW – We are now offering services through the Cypress Hills Homeowner Help Desk!

 

If you are a homeowner and you are facing any of the following housing issues, please contact the Cypress Hills Homeowner Help Desk for assistance regarding:

 

  • Managing homeowner expenses

  • Accessing low interest home repair loans and/or weatherization grant programs

  • Dealing with difficult tenants 

  • Applying for property tax exemptions  

  • Correcting property (i.e., building or housing code) violations

  • Overdue water or property tax bills

  • Property tax or water liens on NYC's lien sale list

  • Addressing being a victim of a scam

  • Confronting investors' and speculators' harassment and pressure to sell your home


    Contact us for informative updates on state and federal Covid 19 pandemic laws and/or policies.

Contact:
Shaheda Begum
Housing Counselor

3214 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, NY 11208

shahedab@cypresshills.org

(718) 647-8100 ext: 106

(718) 647-2104 - fax 

 

Our outreach team will also be reaching out to Cypress Hills homeowners and organizing homeowner events.

Homeowner Help Desk

Financial Literacy

Haga clic aquí para leer en español

 

Financial literacy counseling and education offers small-group workshops and counseling to individual consumers, prospective home buyers, homeowners, renters, students and their families.

 

We will provide you with guidance on managing your personal finances.  Services are free, except for credit checks when necessary.

 

Topics we can help with are:

  • Budgeting and saving

  • Student loan debt

  • Consumer debt, including credit cards

  • Improving your credit score

  • Planning for retirement

  • Understanding the banking system and working with banks

  • And more

    Contact us for informative updates on state and federal Covid 19 pandemic laws and/or policies.

 

Contact:
Rene Arlain

Housing Counseling Director

renea@cypresshills.org

3214 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, NY 11208

(718) 647-8100

Financial Literacy
Foreclosure Prevention Counseling

Foreclosure Prevention Counseling

Haga clic aquí para leer en español:

 

Our Foreclosure Prevention Counseling Program counselors provide the following services to owners facing mortgage payment difficulties:

 

  • Jointly assess cases and options for resolving mortgage payment issues

  • Develop action plans with key steps to address servicer/borrower communication, savings and budgets, liens, and submission of requests for mortgage assistance

  • Help owners bring accounts up to date by applying for potential workout plans such as loan modifications, forbearance agreements, partial claims, repayment plans, etc.

  • Review options to sustain and/or sell the property, as needed

  • Referrals to non-profit legal services agencies for owners grappling with foreclosure lawsuits, settlement conferences

  • Assess borrowers’ eligibility to secure conventional refinance loans

  • Clarify the pros and cons of refinancing and/or putting homes up for sale through a market sale, short-sale, HUD pre-foreclosure sale, or considering deed-in-lieu of foreclosure, etc.

 

Complete our online intake form, and we will be in touch within 5 business days to set up an office appointment.

Contact us for informative updates on state and federal Covid 19 pandemic laws and/or policies.

Contact:

Rosalinda Gutierrez

Supervising Foreclosure Prevention Counselor
Housing Counseling
3214 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, NY 11208

rosalindag@cypresshills.org

718-647-8100 ex. 107

(718) 647-2104 - Fax

Katherine Briones 

Foreclosure Prevention Counselor

Housing Counseling
3214 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, NY 11208

katherineb@cypresshills.org

718-647-8100 ex. 104

(718) 647-2104 - Fax

Tenant Organizing

The Tenant Organizing program and our Tenant Organizers address housing issues by organizing and formalizing tenant associations-groups in rent stabilized buildings with 6 or more apartments.  Organized tenant associations build tenants’ collective power to mount campaigns and/or strategies for correcting problems such as: housing violations, poor building security, tenant harassment, unlawful rent overcharges and evictions, unresponsive property management; as well as amplifying and exercising the rights and protections of tenants under the recent June 2019 changes to the rent stabilization law of N.Y.S.  

Juan Vazquez

Tenant Organizer/Counselor

juanv@cypresshills.org

718-647-8100

718-748-2104 - Fax

Tenant Organizing and Counseling

Tenant Counseling

The Tenant Counseling program and Tenant Counselors provide one-on-one counseling and advocacy services to help individual tenants address housing problems such as eviction and non-payment court cases, hazardous housing violations, tenant harassment, accessing housing subsidies, and more. 

We have a specialized program for senior (60+) renters. Contact us for more info!

Contact us for informative updates on state and federal Covid 19 pandemic laws and/or policies.

Tenant Counseling For Seniors (Ages 60+) Contact

Tenant Counseing

Katherine Briones

Senior Tenant Counselor

katherineb@cypresshills.org

718-647-8100 ex. 104 

(718) 647-2104 - Fax

Shaheda Begum

Housing Counselor

shahedab@cypresshills.org

(718) 647-8100 ext: 106

(718) 647-2104 - Fax 

Rosalinda Gutierrez

Supervising Foreclosure Prevention Counselor
Housing Counseling

rosalindag@cypresshills.org

718-647-8100 ex. 107

(718) 647-2104 - Fax

Tenant Counseling For Non-Seniors Contact

Juan Vazquez

Tenant Organizer/Counselor

juanv@cypresshills.org

718-647-8100

718-748-2104 - Fax

Abigail Bernal Lopez

Tenant Counselor

abigailbl@cypresshills.org

718-647-8100 ex. 101

(718) 647-2104 - Fax

Housing Counseling Webinars

Eviction Prevention Workshop October 19th, 2023

Webinars

Housing Counseling Workshop October 11th, 2023

Phipps Housing Connect Webinar: July 7th, 2023

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