Founders Day at New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)- My Home Pathway
In the US, February is a month in which we honor and celebrate the accomplishments of Black Americans since 1915. This comes after former president Gerald Ford officially made the extension from a week to a month in 1926.
My Home Pathway Founder, Castleigh Johnson with other Black Founders and Executives at NYSE Executive at the closing bell of the exchange.
We at My Home Pathway are all about change and growth especially in the black community, it is our mission to assist citizens of all backgrounds improve their financial health and prudently lead them through a stable pathway towards homeownership. We seek to accomplish this with the necessary tools and platforms navigating the mortgage loan process. Homeownership statistics show an imbalanced ratio towards the black community, whereby 44% of black citizens own a home, this is in contrast to 74% of their white counterparts. This informs our goal and ambitions to correct this imbalance and bring about change through our business.
It is also with great honour and appreciation that our vision has been recognised, as we were part of history being made at the NYSE Founders Day. Our founder and Chief Executive Officer Castleigh Johnson had the opportunity to chat with Emmy award winning Journalist and Anchor, Alicia Nieves at Fintech.TV. Their conversation summarised ways in which My home pathway as a business aims to create equity within the homeownership space, by allowing lenders and mortgage originators an opportunity to generate revenue while also boosting social impact that will inevitable close the gap seen in homeownership statistics among different ethnic groups.
Johnson also touched on the journey that has come with a lot of challenges and Nos that founders are faced with due to lack of access and the VC community being driven by relationships making it difficult to enter network at start up space even though the numbers have shown an out performance from blank owned businesses but access to capital is still narrowed.
“Founders face many challenges such as the narrow access to capital when attempting to crack into the venture capital market, exacerbated by the relationship-based nature of the environment. This dynamic has made it difficult for startups to compete with established firms, even though statistics show relative outperformance from black-owned businesses
Castleigh also spoke of the opportunities the company has enjoyed with regards to capital and funding, …the company has been able to raise one and a half million dollars in funding. He also went on to extend his gratitude to all the investors and VCs who have shown great faith in the company and its mission to uplift the black community. as he speaks of how the journey hasn’t been an easy one and also emphasising on Lack of Access to be the main barrier.
In closing, Mr Johnson reiterated the need to create an awareness among the community that about the importance of having an open market allowing access to minority groups. He further stressed that it is not only about capital but extensive support, introduction to investors and fighting through difficult negotiation, since the aim is not to reverse-discriminate but rather broadened inclusivity in order to compete globally.
An evidently disheartening occurrence within the database and statistics shows that black businesses have been awarded just 1.2% of the available funds and only 29% of loans have been approved to black business owners. This contradicts observed performance at startup level and the people are speaking up. asking the VCs and Investors to focus on the issues that need to change, founders are saying “we’re out here and we’re trying to find you, please find us too”, they’re encouraging venture capitalists to be more creative, quit the pattern recognition movement and tap into other networks, allowing a dual approach between themselves and founders.
We at My Home Pathway are standing up with our fellow founders including all other black business owners who are facing stark challenges in attempts to penetrate the market. We need to put in the works and implement the action through our innovative and creative work ethics, follow due processes in order close the gap through feasible policies and programs and maximise the benefits internally so that we all allowed to efficiently participate. So as we celebrate Black History Month, we believe that a lot of progress has been made as a country and a community to create opportunities within our market space, however there still lays great room for improvement. Going forward.
From: Success Team @ My Home Pathway
