JPMorgan Chase announced it is doubling down on a prior investment into Chicago’s South and West sides with a new $10 million loan commitment to a local nonprofit to aid affordable housing development.
Chase is providing the loan to the Chicago Community Loan Fund, which allows developers to seek money for their own projects. The sites will be on the South and West sides.
The loan is part of a larger $200 million commitment to address decades of disinvestment in Chicago’s South and West sides, and includes a prior $10 million loan in 2018 for small businesses.
Bank officials were on hand Tuesday with Gov. JB Pritzker to celebrate at the site of another JPMorgan Chase investment — the Aspire Center for Workforce Innovation in Austin.
“This $10 million will be transformational for small and nonprofit developers who are helping to fill the affordable housing gap,” Pritzker said. “It’s going to give Chicago’s most struggling, working families an affordable place to rest their heads at night.”
The Aspire Center site, a former elementary school at 5500 W. Madison St., will open as a destination for “top-notch workforce training” in April, powered partially by an $11 million equity investment from JPMorgan Chase to the Chicago Community Loan Fund.
Chase’s new long-term, low-interest loan to the fund will support its Communities of Color loan program.
“We believe that economic opportunity is deeply rooted in community development,” said Kevin Goldsmith, managing director of community development tax credits and intermediaries lending at JPMorgan Chase.
The 2018 investment resulted in the development of five real estate projects. Over half of the financing went to local Black developers, Goldsmith added.
“We know high borrowing costs and lack of access to equity financing has contributed to disinvestment in low income communities, particularly those of color,” he said.
“I think we’re starting something special here,” said Bob Tucker, interim president of the Chicago Community Loan Fund . “This initiative will provide sustained low-cost capital to help our borrowers develop healthy communities with housing, commercial facilities, retail and social enterprises in longtime underinvested communities. The substantial infusion of capital by JPMorgan Chase will advance CCLF’s goal to transform our entire region into one with equitable prosperity for all.”
Small businesses, like Gresham’s Jamaica Jerk Villa, were previously the target of Chase’s 2018 loan investment, which was more retail-focused.
Loans can be up to $1 million per borrower from Chase’s contribution, and up to $5 million of financing total for a developer.
Source: chicago.suntimes.com
