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October 21, 2003 - Group Vows $26M for Affordable Housing
   

Reebok Chief Executive Paul Fireman and other members of Boston's elite will unveil plans today for a $26 million fund to finance housing for the state's poorest of the poor.

Fireman, whose foundation is donating $5 million, will help launch the "Home Funders" program in a City Hall ceremony.

"We think building affordable homes for families is certainly one of the key ways to solve homelessness," said Fireman's son, Dan, who oversees the foundation's affordable-housing efforts.

Other donations include $150,000 from Fidelity Vice Chairman Peter Lynch and $5 million from the foundation of David McGrath Jr., late founder of temporary-staffing giant TAD Resources International Inc.

The project will offer loans to both non-profit and for-profit developers to build housing for families with $22,000 or less in household income.

Dan Fireman said the effort aims to particularly help those who make just above the government's $15,500 poverty line.

"As you're working and your income goes up, government subsidies disappear," he said. "So you could be making $22,000 and actually wind up with less money then when you were on welfare."

Home Funders plans to finance 1,000 new housing units over the next decade, with 75 percent located in the Boston area and the rest elsewhere in Massachusetts.

The $26 million includes money already earmarked toward 11 affordable housing projects.

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