Nehemiah Corporation of America
Nehemiah Corporation of America is a non-profit organization based in Sacramento, California specializing in homeownership, affordable housing and community development. It started in 1994 as a small organization, but grew to prominence later in the 1990s after it developed a program that allowed home buyers to make down payments on their purchases using funds that were derived from the home sellers. This program, the Nehemiah Program, became popular and was widely emulated, giving birth to what came to be known as the seller-funded down-payment assistance industry. The industry attracted criticism from U.S. federal agencies (particularly the Government Accountability Office and the Internal Revenue Service) and was ultimately shut down in 2008 by a change in federal law.
Amenia, North Dakota
The town of Amenia traces its roots to a group of wealthy New England investors from the villages of Amenia, New York and Sharon, Connecticut which formed the Amenia and Sharon Land Company and, in July 1875, under the representation of Eben W. Chaffee, purchased of land from the then bankrupt Northern Pacific Railroad. The stockholders' plan had been to develop the land enough to sell it to settlers, thus quickly realizing a return on the investors shares. However, taking notice of the success of the Cass-Cheney-Dalrymple bonanza farm near Casselton, North Dakota, and the exceptional fertility of the soil, Chaffee convinced the stockholders to hold the land and break the prairie sod for the production of wheat. The company built a depot and, in 1881, a grain elevator in order to move their product to market. Around them grew the village of Amenia. By the mid-1880s, the town had grown enough to require school services and to build a Congregational church. Chaffee was among its earliest residents and continued to be a central figure in the development of the town.