Ideas that build homeownership

In fall 2025, Capital One hosted the Pathways to Homeownership Summit in Chicago to announce a major new effort aimed at tackling the national affordable housing crisis—the $25 million Scaling Pathways to Homeownership Open Call, sponsored by the Capital One Foundation in partnership with Lever for Change. 

Kristen Faust, a panelist participant at the Summit, knows firsthand that affordable housing creates more than just shelter—it builds stability. As Executive Director of the Illinois Housing Development Authority, she works to expand access to homeownership and rental housing, helping people find homes they can afford.

But still, individuals and families are being priced out and demand is far outpacing supply. That’s why Faust believes solving the current affordable housing crisis requires a unified effort from government, individuals and the business sector. The $25 million investment from Capital One to expand homeownership in the United States was an “inspirational push” for her and others to keep advancing economic opportunity. 

“It's always exciting when we see a financial institution that has national reach want to hold up the work we're doing in community development,” said Faust. “If we're going to have Illinois, or anywhere in the country, be a great place to live, we need those public-private partnerships so everybody can feel they have their shot at the American dream.”

 

A Bold Investment for National Impact
The $25 million Open Call, sponsored by the Capital One Foundation and the nonprofit Lever for Change, is part of Capital One’s five-year, $265 billion Community Benefits Plan, developed as part of its acquisition of Discover, that will create affordable housing, enable ready and resilient consumers, grow and sustain small businesses, and invest in community infrastructure. In 2024 alone, the company financed nearly $3 billion in affordable housing across the country.

The investment was announced at the two-day summit in Chicago that brought together 200 community, government and industry leaders. Organizations nationwide can submit proposals demonstrating a measurable solution to scale homeownership, strengthen community partnerships and sustain long-term change in the housing ecosystem.

Ten organizations will be selected as finalists and given $200,000 in seed money to refine their plans. Ultimately five groups will be selected as winners, with each receiving $4.6 million. 

The Chicago Sun Times noted Chicago’s own efforts to address challenges with affordable housing, sharing: “Chicago and Cook County have been pushing to create more affordable and market-rate housing across the region, like the county’s modular housing pilot program.” 

Payments Dive and Forbes further reported on the announcement, with Forbes noting the need for data-driven solutions to tackle the affordable housing crisis, sharing: “[Capital One’s Open Call] reflects a move away from digitizing paperwork toward building intelligent systems that connect people to homes—not someday, but when they are ready.”

Collaboration and Commitment Across Communities
Summit participants included housing policy experts, community development leaders and civic engagement advocates. They emphasized the need for collaborative solutions to address the affordable housing crisis—from policy reform to leveraging data and creating new paths to homeownership.

“Partnership and innovation are key,” said Kristen J. Molyneaux, President and Co-Founder of Lever for Change. “We are looking for new tools, new models, new resources—anything that can help individuals and families build wealth.”

The first two panels brought together housing experts to discuss affordable housing solutions, across the country and in Chicago, a key market for the newly combined Capital One and Discover. The third panel gave community leaders across sectors a forum to share success stories and pain points, as well as what is needed for neighborhoods to thrive, followed by roundtable discussions between dozens of community representatives.

“Housing is not about a property. It is about buying part of your community and what goes along with that,” said Susanna Wickham, President and CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago, during the group discussion at her table.

Many panelists agreed homeownership is a pathway to generational wealth and impacts the broader economy.

“When you buy a home you’re not just buying a home you’re buying a piece of the community,” said panelist Ghian Foreman, President and CEO of Emerald South Economic Development Collaborative. “When you buy a home, you go and buy things to put in it—that’s the economy.”
 

An Open Invitation to Innovate
With applications now open, the Open Call invites people to reimagine what is possible. That includes transforming housing counseling, consumer education and for-sale housing production at scale. Interested applicants registered to apply mid December of 2025.

Accelerating and driving progress on housing affordability and homeownership solutions requires different people and organizations to come together, said Dr. Shena Ashley, Vice President of Community Impact and Investment at Capital One. “Our best source of capital is our human capital who can bring forth ideas, and then bring various skill sets forward to bring those ideas to life,” she added.

Faust is eager to see what ideas come forward. Beyond the funding, she feels the new program is giving her and others who work to make housing affordable a new level of excitement and encouragement.

“Maybe you have [an idea] you thought was too big to even bring up because it seems so ambitious,” she said. “But I feel like the energy [from the Chicago Summit] was, ‘No, there's nothing too ambitious.’”

These unified commitments have set a new, high-impact trajectories, solidifying Capital One’s $25 million Open Call as a catalyst for scalable, collaborative solutions designed to turn the dream of homeownership into a reality for more families nationwide.