A collaborative of five organizations – the Family Housing Fund, Hope Community, the Land Bank Twin Cities, the Minnesota Home Ownership Center, and the Greater Minnesota Housing Fund – was awarded a $4 million, three-year grant from the JPMorgan Chase Advancing Cities Challenge to pilot a comprehensive strategy to reduce racial disparities in homeownership and wealth.
The initiative will support first-time home buyers with low to moderate incomes purchase small multifamily buildings (duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes) and build wealth as owner-occupant landlords. The collaborative aims to address the constrained supply and high competition of these buildings by providing development and rehab loans to development firms led by people of color. They also plan to improve access to capital for first-time homebuyers by mitigating risk for lenders, providing down payment assistance, and creating emergency repair resources. In partnership with community-based organizations, they will build a pipeline of potential community buyers and sellers. Each household who purchases a 2-4 unit building is expected to see their wealth increase by at least $300,000 over 15 years. By focusing efforts in neighborhoods of color with low homeownership rates, the collaborative aims to reduce Minnesota’s dramatic racial wealth disparities while promoting local ownership of the land.
The JPMorgan Chase grant will support the collaborative’s pilot in seven recently designated “cultural districts” in Minneapolis. The collaborative plans to expand this work in neighborhoods of color in Saint Paul and the greater Twin Cities metro region and aspires to create a national model for reducing racial wealth disparities through real estate ownership.
Key learnings: https://www.fhfund.org/wins-advancingcities-challenge/
For more information, contact: Karyssa Scheck, Grants and Special Projects Manager, karyssa@fhfund.org, (612) 274-7693.
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