NACA

Another portal to homeownership Harris recommends is the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, also known as NACA.

With homeowners now facing another crisis, this time prompted by a pandemic, things are better, says Bruce Marks, chief executive and founder of NACA.

NASA’s predecessor, NACA, or the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, “did research, technology development to initially support defense … but also later on supporting a burgeoning commercial aircraft industry and aviation industry,” he said.

In 1952 she applied to work at NACA’s research outpost in Hampton, Virginia, then called the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory.

In 1951, Mrs. Vaughan became the first black section head at NACA, as the advisory committee was known, when she was officially placed in charge of Langley’s West Area Computing Unit, the segregated office to which the black women were relegated.