Arkansas Stories and Data

Sylvia Brandon has lived in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, for over 48 years, paying rent and wanting to make it her goal to become a homeowner. “I’ve rented all my life…and I didn’t want to keep giving somebody money for something that would never be mine in the end,” said Brandon. She initially learned about Hope Credit Union from a social media post highlighting HOPE’s mortgage products.

“If it′s planted in the ground,” Sergio Lozano said, “I can make it grow.” A year-round farm laborer, Lozano works in rice, corn, cotton, and soybean fields from daybreak until sundown to support his wife and two children.

For 43 years, Dr. Mona McBride’s mother, Mary Arnold, was a pastor in the small city of Hamburg, Arkansas, and a pillar of hope to the community. Today, Dr. McBride views the new CAREFirst pharmacy and wellness center that she opened in 2023 as a continuation of her mother’s legacy, providing holistic and personal care and resources to a medically underserved community.

On Halloween 2022, Magan Hubbard and her daughter Mackenzie, 16, received the biggest treat of all when they moved into their new home in Little Rock, AR. Hubbard’s monthly payments for the brand new house were about the same amount she had been paying to rent an apartment.