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Today's Featured Biography

Algernon Penn

Algernon H. Penn has worked as a homeownership advocate in the African-American community for nearly 20 years. He is currently, Director of Enterprise Sales for E4E Financial Services, an international outsourcing company based in Bangalore, India. He most recently Vice-President of Strategic Partnerships for Home Gift USA, Inc., a national Downpayment Assistance Provider non-profit which provides downpayment and closing cost dollars to potential homebuyers. At Home Gift USA, he is responsible for the “Keys of the Kingdom Homeownership Initiative,” which is a national effort to impact African-American homeownership though 40,000 African-American churches through a partnership with Urban Ministries Inc./Urban Outreach Foundation, the largest publisher of African-American Christian educational materials in the world. This initiative will address all aspects of housing, education and credit counseling needs of the African-American church community.

As one the few African-American executives in the Downpayment Assistance Provider Gift Fund Industry, he is a nationally known motivational speaker, and is responsible for training builders, real estate and mortgage professionals as well as consumers about African-American Homeownership and Wealth Building through Real Estate.

He was National Program Director for the National Association of Real Estate Brokers,’ NAREB HOUSING AMERICA FUND. With NHAF, he administered the nation’s first private-label down-payment assistance program for the oldest African-American real estate trade association in the nation. This program helped impact homeownership in the African-American community as well as creating revenue to NAREB’s 501(c) 3 non-profit organization, the NAREB Development Corporation.

Mr. Penn was Regional Director for the Nehemiah Corporation of California’s (Midwest Region) Down Payment Assistance program, which is nationally known as The Nehemiah Program. During his tenure at Nehemiah, he was instrumental in helping Nehemiah provide the opportunity of homeownership to over 130,000 families. At Nehemiah, he was a roundtable member with Cities First, a public and private partnership between the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Nehemiah Corporation of California committed to ensuring that urban cities are vibrant centers of commerce while providing economic opportunity for residents in those urban areas.

He has been involved with The WOW Initiative, which is a national effort promoted by The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation to create one million African-American homeowners by the year 2005. With this effort, he has served on four Congressional Task Force Committees in Chicago and Detroit and addressing the issues and needs of African-American homeownership. He also served as a committee member for The Rainbow-PUSH Coalition’s Real Estate and Mortgage Trade Bureau, which is dedicated to the education of potential homeowners and consumers with financial literacy classes to assist them in their pursuit and retention of homeownership.

Mr. Penn is the recipient of The NAACP-Image Award, The New Orleans Center for Successful Living’s-Spirit of Greatness Award, CenTrust Mortgage’s President’s Club Award, Commonwealth-United Mortgage’s Platinum Club Award, North American Mortgages Producer’s Roundtable Award and has been honored for his efforts in affordable homeownership by the Texas Association of Real Estate Brokers, the Ohio REALTIST® Association, United States Senator Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, former New Orleans Mayor and current National Urban League President Marc H. Morial and the New Orleans City Council and the 1st Congressional District of Illinois. Mr. Penn was a speaker for The African-American MBA Association’s DuSable Business Conference at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business, a speaker at the inaugural Mississippi Faith Based Coalition’s Faith Summit in Jackson Mississippi in 2002, the Third Annual City of Memphis Faith-Based Conference, October 2002, Urban Outreach Foundation’s Annual Pastor’s and Ministry Leaders Conference September 2004.

Mr. Penn is Chairman of “Friends of ALNAC” (Abraham Lincoln National Airport Commission) a political action committee dedicated to working with Congressman Jesse L. Jackson Jr. to bringining a 3rd regional airport to the Chicagoland area. He was also named as a 2004-“Who’s Who Among African-Americans, 17th Edition” by Thomson-Gale Publishers.

He has served as 2nd-Vice-President of Chicago’s Dearborn REALTIST® Board (DREB) and National Sub-Committee Chairman of Product Development for The National Association of Real Estate Brokers Inc. (NAREB). He is a member of the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Presidents Club, which provides scholarship opportunities for deserving minority students. He is a resident of University Park, Illinois where he has also served as an elected official, Village Trustee.

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