BlueHub SUN is a nonprofit that works exclusively with families facing foreclosure or eviction to help them save their homes. Since 2009, we have helped more than 1,000 families save their homes for good.
Our program enables homeowners in default or foreclosure on their existing mortgages, who are often facing eviction, to retain or regain homeownership and to continue to live in their homes with a new mortgage they can afford.
“I could have been evicted with my family if it wasn’t for BlueHub and getting that loan.”
After dealing with multiple medical emergencies, job loss and reduced income, Rose and her husband went into foreclosure in 2011. They lost title to their home, meaning the bank was the legal owner and they were about to be evicted. They entered BlueHub SUN in 2017; SUN negotiated with the bank over several months to purchase their home for a reduced price and then sold it back to Rose. Rose, now the executive director of a social justice nonprofit, and her husband are current SUN clients and have referred several neighbors to the program.
*As of December 2022
“I can advocate for SUN for everything because they kept me out of stress and kept my family together.”
Sellou went through a divorce and had trouble paying her mortgage. She went into foreclosure in 2010 and lost title to her home in 2011; the bank owned her home and she was about to be evicted. SUN was able to negotiate a lower sale price with her bank, and SUN sold the home back to her in 2012 with a shared appreciation mortgage (SAM) that reflects the savings she got on her loan. Sellou remains a SUN client and because of her participation in the program, she has been able to regain her financial footing and build significant home equity.
*As of December 2022
“I was bound and determined that I was not going to lose my home. Don’t ever give up.”
Bonnie and her husband fell behind on their mortgage after he lost his job in 2010. They tried working with their lender on a loan modification but their mortgage was sold. They went back and forth with their new lender for three years on a new modification before being unexpectedly foreclosed on in 2015; the bank took ownership of the property that same year. In 2017, BlueHub SUN was able to negotiate to buy and sell the home back to them with a new affordable mortgage and a shared appreciation mortgage. Bonnie and her husband are current SUN clients.
*As of December 2022
Experts agree that BlueHub SUN's innovative mortgage lending allows homeowners to keep their property and grow their equity over time.
Professor Kathleen Engel, Suffolk University Law School
Professor Engel is a Research Professor of Law at Suffolk University Law School in Boston. She is a national authority on mortgage finance and regulation, subprime and predatory lending, consumer credit, and housing discrimination.
She calls the shared appreciation mortgage a "critical tool" in preventing eviction.
Professor Engel has advised federal and state agencies on various matters related to financing of loans and served for three years on the Consumer Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve Board. In addition, one of her many publications includes a 2011 book titled The Subprime Virus: Reckless Credit, Regulatory Failure and Next Steps, that tells the story behind the subprime mortgage crisis.
Molly Goodman, former housing counselor
Molly Goodman has dedicated her career to supporting affordable housing and homeownership for low- and moderate-income residents of Massachusetts. She is the board president of Abundant Housing Massachusetts. In the past she served as the manager of counseling and homeownership for Allston-Brighton Community Development Corporation, as a graduate fellow with the Brookline Housing Authority and as a foreclosure prevention associate with Urban Edge under a program of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Community Based Home Corps.
Goodman says BlueHub SUN was one of the only programs willing to work with clients to cut the principal balance to make the lower payments possible.
From 2006 to 2012 during the Great Recession, US households lost over $7 trillion in home equity, causing about 22% of all residential mortgages to be underwater. By mid-2011, nearly 8% of all mortgages in the US were over 90-days delinquent and mortgage lenders completed more than 6.3 million foreclosures from 2006 to 2016.
Foreclosures have compounding impacts on families and neighborhoods, such as: declining home values for properties nearby foreclosed homes, blight, higher rates of emergency-room visits, worse mental-health outcomes, higher truancy rates and worse educational outcomes among children.
In 2009, with the foreclosure crisis in full swing, BlueHub developed and deployed a program that succeeded in avoiding foreclosures. BlueHub SUN first started lending in hard-hit neighborhoods in Boston. The program proved successful in enabling homeowners to keep their homes and rebuild equity. SUN was then offered statewide in Massachusetts, and eventually in 10 other states.
The shared appreciation mortgage is not unique to SUN. The concept was created in the UK in the 1990s and is used in the US by local housing authorities, nonprofits, colleges and universities, and municipalities like Arlington, VA's Moderate Income Purchase Assistance Program and the City of Boulder, CO's H2O loan.
BlueHub, formerly named Boston Community Capital, has won praise for its approach to foreclosure relief. PBS NewsHour detailed the program and its positive impact in Greater Boston. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke called SUN “an innovative strategy to prevent occupied homes from becoming vacant and creating a strain on the community.” The Washington Post called it "a national model for fighting blight."
BlueHub SUN clients are significantly better off through their participation in the program. More than 400 families—42% of SUN clients—have successfully exited the program with an average of $150,000 in home equity. Most of those 400 families had zero or negative equity in their homes when they entered the SUN program.
Overall, BlueHub SUN has put $65 million in home equity back into homeowners' pockets, $45 million in Massachusetts alone. That personal wealth would have otherwise been lost to foreclosure and/or eviction.
Mortgage loans made to families facing foreclosure or eviction
Average savings on monthly payments
Average savings on mortgage principal
Mortgage loans made in MA to families facing foreclosure or eviction
Average savings on monthly payments for MA homeowners
Average savings on mortgage principal for MA homeowners
Disclosures (written, verbal and video explanations) about the shared appreciation mortgage and other key terms of the program are issued 7 times throughout the months-long process from application to closing.
Elyse Cherry has served as the CEO of BlueHub Capital since 1997. Under Cherry’s leadership, BlueHub has invested over $2.4 billion, leveraged an additional $12 billion, and built a national tax credit practice to: finance affordable housing, health centers, schools and other community facilities; provide foreclosure relief through the creation of a mortgage lender aimed at stabilizing urban neighborhoods; create jobs; benchmark and drive down energy and utility costs; promote resiliency; and remove financial barriers to US citizenship.
An active civic and business leader, Cherry is a member of the Wellesley College Board of Trustees, the Board of Advisors of Eastern Bank, and Chair of the Board of the Forsyth Institute. She is also on the Board of Directors of The Boston Foundation, where she co-chairs the Advisory Committee for The Equality Fund -- a fund supporting Greater Boston nonprofits that strengthen the LGBTQ community.
Cherry has been named one of 50 most influential Bostonians by the Boston Business Journal, one of the Top 100 LGBT Executives in the World by the Financial Times and OUTstanding, and one of 21 Leaders for the 21st Century by Women’s eNews. In 2014, the White House named Cherry a Solar Champion of Change. She received Wellesley’s Alumnae Achievement Award in 2017, and she received the Susan M. Love Award from Fenway Health in 2014. Boston Globe Magazine and The Women's Edge have named BlueHub Capital one of the Top 100 Women-Led Businesses in Massachusetts every year since 2014.
Under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, it is illegal to discriminate in any credit transaction:
Deny a loan for the purpose of purchasing, constructing, improving, repairing or maintaining a dwelling, or to deny any loan secured by a dwelling; or discriminate in fixing the amount, interest rate, duration, application procedures, or other terms or conditions of such a loan, or in appraising property.
If you believe you have been discriminated against, send a complaint to:
Consumer Finance Protection Bureau
1700 G Street
Washington, DC 20552
1-855-411-2372 (voice), 1-855-729-2372 (TTY)
More than 180 languages available
Under the Federal Fair Housing Act, it is illegal, on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, handicap, or familial status (having children under the age of 18) to:
Deny a loan for the purpose of purchasing, constructing, improving, repairing or maintaining a dwelling, or to deny any loan secured by a dwelling; or discriminate in fixing the amount, interest rate, duration, application procedures, or other terms or conditions of such a loan, or in appraising property.
If you believe you have been discriminated against, send a complaint to:
Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity
Department of Housing and Urban Development
Washington, DC 20410
1-800-669-9777 (voice), 1-800-927-9275 (TTY)
For processing under the Federal Fair Housing Act
