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Home buying for the low to middle class, using charitable down payment assistance programs, might become a thing of the past.

Right now, low to middle class families are utilizing down payment assistance programs that are under scrutiny by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. These programs allow people, who qualify by income guidelines, to accept a monetary gift from charitable organizations - such as the Nehemiah Corporation of America - and use it for their down payments. This practice has helped thousands remove themselves from their dead-end rental situations.

I used the Nehemiah program to buy my first home. I had little money and a growing family, and I had been a renter for over 12 years. When I finally found a home I could afford, I couldn't come up with the 3 percent down payment required for a loan insured by the Federal Housing Administration.

The Nehemiah program provides the seller a gift of 4 percent of the cost of the home for down payment and closing costs. These gift funds never have to be repaid, have no buyer-income limitations and have no location restrictions. For a buyer to be eligible to benefit from the gift, the seller must contribute to the Nehemiah Corporation of America an amount equal to the gift, plus pay a small processing fee.

Over the past 10 years, down payment assistance organizations have helped more than 1 million people become home owners. These privately funded organizations have distributed $3.8 billion for down payment assistance. No government money or taxpayer dollars are used for the programs, whose money ripples through the economy with beneficial effects. But HUD wants to eliminate these programs - a move that could put taxpayers on the hook.

HUD's proposal, titled "Standards for Mortgagor's Investment in Mortgaged Property," targets home buyers who obtain loans insured by FHA, by removing the option to use charitable organizations' assistance or private funding with ties to the seller for down payments and closing costs. HUD claims this type of assistance has been an issue for many years.

Under the proposal, HUD would not allow any form of down payment assistance in any of its programs, if the assistance is derived in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, from sellers who use the assistance in their own home-sale transactions to cover a buyer's down payment.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out how these programs could be used for shady purposes. But the ratio of good to bad doesn't warrant their abolition. If enacted, the new rulings would change the real estate market for the worse.

The proposal is open for public comment until July 10. There must be a compromise, or the little guy will get the bad end of the deal - again.