“A roof over your head” is more than a cliché. It can be the defining description of a person’s life. If they don’t have one, the situation is dire. If they struggle to afford one, the anxiety level is high. Housing insecurity can sap anyone’s strength and spirit.
As home prices and rents continue to rise, uncertainty presents obstacles not only to residents but to the community as a whole. One program that’s provided some relief is Home for Good, an initiative by Huntington Bank that expands access to historically under-resourced mortgage applicants. Steve Mullinger, president of the bank’s Southern Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana region, believes that home ownership is the best way for a person or family to build wealth, which in turn adds value to the community as a whole.
“Affordable housing to a middle-income person is different from to a low-income person, but it’s still an issue for their hopes and goals,” says Mullinger. “There are things we’ve been able to work with the mortgage rules that every bank has to follow. For example, we can allow a credit score lower than a conventional loan with an offset of potential grants or credit enhancements specific to first-time home buyers. Or we can set lower downpayments because that’s one of the hardest things buyers face.”
Saving funds for a home downpayment is difficult for many families, he says, “especially when you’re raising a couple of kids. Everyone has pressure on their money, and we’re trying to create programs that help alleviate the pressure so they reach their goal.”
At the same time that Huntington is trying to help buyers, it’s also investing billions of dollars with builders and community partners to provide more housing units. “We have built a good reputation in the three states,” says Mullinger. “We try to connect developers to communities where there is a need. We work on a larger scale with partners like the Cincinnati Regional Chamber, REDI, the Port Authority, and the city of Cincinnati. Those organizations help attract companies here, and to do that you need a workforce. That workforce needs places to live.”
Counting its work through Home for Good and its community development division that helps increase housing inventory, Huntington is the largest Small Business Association lender in the Cincinnati region, according to Cincinnati Business Courier. It made more than 270 SBA-backed loans in 2024 for a total of almost $60 million.
If small business is the backbone of the American economy, Huntington is committed to strengthening that spine. The bank’s own local workforce is comprised of more than 700 employees who staff more that 50 locations. And, to paraphrase Mullinger, those folks need places to live.
Illustration by Davi Augusto