LISC awarded $7.5M Capital Magnet Fund grant for affordable housing, economic development

NEW YORK, Feb. 23, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The federal government awarded the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) $7.5 million from the Treasury Department's Capital Magnet Fund (CMF). LISC's award will help leverage $181 million in affordable housing and economic development in deeply distressed rural and urban communities located in 15 states.

LISC received the third largest of CMF's $175.35 million in grants, announced by the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund), which is part of the Treasury Department. The grants will help 27 CDFIs and 21 nonprofit housing organizations attract $5.3 billion in loans and investments for projects that help struggling populations. The CDFI Fund expects the latest CMF award to support 23,000 affordable housing units.

This is LISC's fourth CMF award. The first three, totaling $17.3 million, helped finance 2,057 units of housing for low-income families and 211,467 square feet of community space. The grants leveraged $711.2 million in development activity focused on the needs of under-invested places.

The new grant builds on that and will further LISC's efforts to expand affordable rental housing, including permanent supportive housing, the need for which has increased as a result of Covid-19. It will also focus resources in areas of economic distress in rural and urban communities. Notably, that includes new solutions to homelessness like converting extended-stay hotels to permanent supportive housing, according to Connie Max, LISC senior vice president of lending. 

"The Capital Magnet Fund gives us another way to help developers address financing gaps and build affordable housing in communities where there is high demand," Max explained.

CMF is especially valuable because it allows lenders to extend their credit box, Max said, and finance projects like SOLA at 87^th, a 160-unit, mixed-used project on a vacant 1.72-acre site in South Los Angeles. A prior CMF award allowed LISC to make a $6.4 million early-stage acquisition and predevelopment loan to this project at a 145 percent loan-to-value. The project will be a vital part of its community through the development of 51 permanent supportive housing units for formerly homeless individuals, 15 units for people who are developmentally disabled, and 6,000 square feet of community-serving commercial, restaurant and office space.

"Financing projects like SOLA supports innovative approaches to solve homelessness and housing insecurity," Max said. "The CMF helps LISC be more innovative in our transaction structuring, bringing more deeply affordable units online."

Read more about the CMF awards here: FY 2020 Capital Magnet Fund Award Book.

About LISC

With residents and partners, LISC forges resilient and inclusive communities of opportunity across America – great places to live, work, visit, do business and raise families. Since 1980, LISC has invested $22 billion to build or rehab 419,000 affordable homes and apartments and develop 70 million square feet of retail, community and educational space.

Media Contact:
Colleen Mulcahy, for LISC
312-342-8244
[email protected]

SOURCE Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC)