First of its kind approach working to increase access to healthy food and drive economic development
June 9, 2015 | Lansing, Mich. – The Michigan Good Food Fund—a new public-private partnership loan and grant fund created to address lack of healthy food access in rural and urban communities alike by supporting good food entrepreneurs across the state—launches today.
Community Health Center Financing, Job Creation, FHLBank Atlanta Membership Highlights of First Quarter Achievements
Arlington, VA (June 2, 2015) – Capital Impact Partners announced today that it provided nearly $32 million in financing to projects in underserved communities during the first quarter of 2015. Capital Impact financed four Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) projects that will enable additional access to integrated health care for more than 17,000 low-income or uninsured patients around the country. The quarter was also marked by Capital Impact joining the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta (FHLBank Atlanta) and leadership recognition for two of the organization’s senior staff members.
May 1, 2015 (Concord, N.H.) – In less than seven years, ROC USA® — an organization of which Capital Impact Partners is a founding investor — has built on a proven strategy of resident ownership in manufactured home communities and scaled it across the country, transforming communities and building a network of 10,000 secure and affordable homes with partners in 14 states.
ROC USA is a nonprofit social venture dedicated to making quality resident ownership of manufactured home communities (aka “mobile home parks”) possible nationwide by helping residents work together as a cooperative to purchase the land their community sits on. It further works to provide democratic homeowner organizations with the opportunity, training and financing to purchase and manage their communities.
“Ten-thousand homes is a significant milestone — it’s the equivalent of a good-sized town,” said ROC USA founding President Paul Bradley, noting that if ROC USA were a community owner, it would boast the 12th-largest portfolio in America. “But our communities are resident-owned, resident-controlled and based on a model that preserves and improves affordable communities while building assets for low- and moderate-income families and individuals.”
Since launching in 2008, ROC USA has helped a resident group purchase its community once every 32 days on average. Turnpike Park Cooperative Inc. in Westborough, Mass., recently refinanced its purchase with ROC USA Capital. The 46 homes in the Boston MetroWest community bring the total number of homes in ROC USA communities to 10,017.
“Capital Impact was created to support consumer and small business cooperatives working in low-income communities. Over the years, we’ve expanded our efforts to scale food, worker and housing co-ops,” said Terry Simonette, CEO of Capital Impact Partners. “As a founding investor in ROC USA we couldn’t be more proud of this 10,000 home milestone and their tireless efforts to help increase resident-owned communities across this country.”
ROC USA includes two wholly-owned subsidiaries: ROC USA Network and ROC USA Capital. ROC USA Network is made up of eight certified technical assistance providers — nonprofit organizations that provide on-the-ground organizational development in each ROC USA community. These trainers work with resident groups from the first meeting following notice of a community sale through the purchase process and for at least the life of the group’s mortgage. They train Board officers, help navigate renovation and rehabilitation projects, and work to make the community self-sufficient and strong.
“The Cooperative Development Institute is immensely pleased to have participated in the preservation of the ROC USA Network’s 10,000th affordable home,” said Noémi Giszpenc, executive director of the Cooperative Development Institute, a ROC USA Certified Technical Assistance Provider since 2009. “Each and every one of those homes is important — they represent a family’s security. We look forward to growing our work and offering this basic opportunity of safe, secure, affordable land tenure to thousands and thousands more homeowners.”
Cooperative ownership of mobile home parks as a way of preserving affordable communities is a priority for several national non-profit organizations that in 2008 formed ROC USA to make resident-owned communities viable nationwide. In addition to Capital Impact, ROC USA is sponsored by NeighborWorks® America, the Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED), and the Community Loan Fund.
“With resident ownership, the homeowners in our network know their homes — their largest assets — are secure,” Bradley said. “That stability fosters a new wave of reinvestment in Members’ homes, the community in general, and an increase in camaraderie that really transforms a group of houses into a neighborhood.”
“We have the actual water, sewer and road resurfacing project to complete now so we have another hurdle to overcome,” said Scott Knox, president of Turnpike Park Cooperative Inc. “But by working together, we will all make it through to the end and have a beautiful functional cooperative to show and be proud of.”
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About Capital Impact Partners
Capital Impact Partners transforms underserved communities into strong, vibrant places of opportunity for people at every stage of life. We deliver strategic financing, incubate new social programs, and provide capacity-building to help ensure that low-to-moderate-income individuals have access to quality health care and education, healthy foods, affordable housing, and the ability to age with dignity. A nonprofit community development financial institution, Capital Impact Partners has disbursed more than $2 billion to revitalize communities over the last 30 years. Headquartered in Arlington, Va., Capital Impact Partners operates nationally, with local offices in Detroit, Mich., and Oakland, Calif. Learn more at www.capitalimpact.org.
April 30, 2015 (Arlington, VA) – Capital Impact Partners announced today that it has awarded $40,000 to the Democracy at Work Institute and United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives through its first Co-op Innovation Award. These organizations were chosen for their track record in providing high quality technical assistance to startup and existing co-ops as well as their leadership in scaling the cooperative model with a focus on low-income communities.
“Thirty years ago Capital Impact was born out of the need to support consumer and small business cooperatives working in low-income communities,” said Terry Simonette, president and CEO of Capital Impact Partners. “We are thrilled to continue that tradition with the debut of our Co-op Innovation Award and support for these two worthy organizations who are demonstrating their leadership in building strong, vibrant communities.”
The Democracy at Work Institute (DAWI) received $20,000 for their “Conversion Collaboration.” This coordinated, national effort is designed help scale “worker co-op conversions” or traditional small businesses which would like to transition to worker-owned co-ops. Through this effort DAWI will create a supportive ecosystem of business organizations, technical assistance providers and lenders with a focus on low-wage industries.”
“We are thrilled to use this award from Capital Impact Partners to help us lay the groundwork for a coordinated, strategic national collaborative effort to convert existing business to cooperative ownership,” said Melissa Hoover, Executive Director of the Democracy at Work Institute. “More than 40 percent of worker cooperatives in existence today were formed by converting an existing business to worker ownership, and several recent large and high-profile conversions show that conversion activity is only growing. With this funding, Capital Impact Partners has its finger on the pulse, and the pulse is strong!
The United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives (USFWC), the national grassroots membership organization for worker co-ops, was awarded $20,000 for the launch of their “Grants for Growth” fund. This revolving grant fund will provide small technical assistance grants to existing co-ops who want to grow their business. These grants will increase the number of loan-ready worker co-ops and their capacity to create new jobs.
“Capital Impact Partners’ Co-op Innovation Award enables the Federation to launch a pilot program we believe will significantly impact the ability for existing worker cooperatives to effectively and successfully grow,” said Amy Johnson, Co-Executive Director for the USFWC.
“The revolving fund we’ve developed will cover the up-front costs of business technical assistance, addressing a known need for three important Federation stakeholders — established worker cooperative businesses, knowledgeable cooperative developers, and co-op-friendly financial institutions — in a coordinated way that has the ability to unlock significant growth potential.”
The Co-op Innovation Award represents one part of Capital Impact’s strategy to promote food, worker and housing co-ops that support underserved communities. Other work includes delivering strategic financing, technical assistance and capacity building resources. Since 1995 Capital Impact has deployed $278 million in co-op financing. The organization’s newest venture in this area is the National Co-op Grocers (NCG) Loan Fund which finances natural food co-ops looking to grow and expand.
“There has been a growing momentum around co-op development in recent years and excitement that we haven’t seen in decades. Capital Impact is excited about the worker co-op sector because of its focus on scale and creation of quality jobs for low-income workers,” said Alison Powers, Program Officer of Cooperative Development at Capital Impact Partners. “The Co-op Innovation award was designed to further this movement and the impact these organizations are creating.”
Capital Impact is also proud to have strong co-op leadership through its board of directors, including longtime ally, Judy Ziewacz, who is a 2015 inductee into the Cooperative Hall of Fame.
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About Capital Impact Partners
Capital Impact Partners transforms underserved communities into strong, vibrant places of opportunity for people at every stage of life. We deliver strategic financing, incubate new social programs and provide capacity-building to help ensure that low-to-moderate income individuals have access to quality health care and education, healthy foods, affordable housing and the ability to age with dignity. A nonprofit community development financial institution, Capital Impact Partners has disbursed more than $2 billion to revitalize communities over the last 30 years. Headquartered in Arlington, Va., Capital Impact Partners operates nationally, with local offices in Detroit, Mich., and Oakland, Calif. Learn more at www.capitalimpact.org
Arlington, VA / Atlanta, GA (March 18, 2015) – Capital Impact Partners today announced that it has joined the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta (FHLBank Atlanta) cooperative of eligible commercial banks, credit unions, savings institutions, community development financial institutions and insurance companies. As an FHLBank Atlanta member, Capital Impact has access to the competitively priced financing, community development grants and other banking services that help the more than 900 of the Bank’s member financial institutions grow and prosper.
Detroit Revitalization, Community Health Centers and New Markets Tax Credits Are Key Elements of Project Financing in Underserved Communities
Arlington, VA (February 12, 2015) – Capital Impact Partners announced today that its 2014 fourth quarter lending to projects in underserved communities topped $45 million. Highlights of this financing included continued Capital Impact leadership in funding Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) projects to increase the availability of healthcare to low income residents, supporting inclusive housing growth in Detroit by closing the first loan through the organization’s partnership with JPMorgan Chase & Co., and leveraging New Markets Tax Credits (NMTC) to support a variety of projects.
Washington, DC (January 27, 2015) – We can say with growing certainty that the economy is in recovery. Unemployment, the stock market, and other economic indicators have reached pre-recession levels. However, millions of low-income American families are still struggling to find stable, affordable housing.
According to a recent Zillow report, rents are up 52 percent nationally since 2000, while renters’ incomes have only increased 25 percent. More than half of households earning less than $30,000 a year spend half their income on rent, leaving little for necessities such as food, medical care, transportation, or savings. There is simply not enough housing affordable to poor households.
Yet, an effective tool created by the US Treasury Department’s Community Financial Development Fund to combat this issue is facing congressional scrutiny. Capital Impact Partners joins with colleague organizations including IFF, the Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF) and The Reinvestment Fund (TRF) in asking Congress to continue its support for the Capital Magnet Fund (CMF) program.
Enacted in the early days of the economic crisis through the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, the CMF and the National Housing Trust Fund (NHTF) were specifically designed to increase America’s supply of affordable rental housing. The CMF in particular was created as a way for high-capacity organizations to attract investment into affordable housing and spur economic development in distressed communities.
A Proven Track Record of Success
While the demand for affordable housing that led to the creation of CMF and NHTF intensified, payments to the programs were suspended when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were put into government conservatorship. But the one-time $80 million Congressional appropriation for the CDFI Fund within the Department of Treasury in 2010 enabled CMF and its grantees to clearly demonstrate the program’s effectiveness and impact.
Twenty-three organizations received the initial round of $80 million in CMF awards. With these funds, awardees attracted 12 times that amount for a total of more than $1 billion invested into communities—much of it from the private sector—creating nearly 7,000 affordable homes and 5,700 jobs in 28 states, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico (through July 2013). Among CMF’s other benefits are the following:
The CMF is an efficient use of federal resources and one of the most effective tools available to get private investment working to help address our nation’s housing challenges. It is leverage that works for the neediest families and America’s economy as a whole.
Terry Simonette, President & CEO, Capital Impact Partners;
Nancy O. Andrews, President & CEO, Low Income Investment Fund;
Don Hinkle-Brown, President & CEO, The Reinvestment Fund;
Joe Neri, CEO, IFF;
Washington, DC (November 25, 2014) The U.S. Department of Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund) today named Annie Donovan as its new Director. Ms. Donovan served as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Capital Impact Partners for more than eighteen years. As COO of Capital Impact, Ms. Donovan was responsible for leading the company’s efforts in community lending, technical assistance, strategy formation, product innovation and policy development.
Leading Community Financial Development Institution Utilizes New Markets Tax Credits To Finance State’s First GREEN HOUSE® Project
Loveland, CO (October 21, 2014) – Capital Impact Partners, in partnership with the Loveland Housing Authority, today announced the opening of Colorado’s first ever GREEN HOUSE® Project facility. A radically new, national model for skilled nursing care, Green House homes are designed from the ground up to look and feel like a real home for 10-12 residents, returning control, dignity and a sense of well-being to elders and their families, while providing high-quality, personalized care.
Milestone achieved as part of third quarter lending efforts to increase housing, charter school and community health center access
Arlington, VA (October 8, 2014) – Capital Impact Partners announced today that its community development financing work topped the two billion dollar mark across the organization’s 30-year history. Capital Impact Partners has financed projects in underserved communities nationwide, helping more than 3 million low-to-moderate income people have increased access to better health care and education, healthy foods and alternative care options for older adults.
