Posted by:
Steve Dubb
Cleveland award to support expansion of Evergreen co-ops
Living Cities, a consortium of the world’s 22 largest foundations and banks, announced late last month that it would award a minimum of $80 million in grants, loans and program-related investments to five urban areas to help them tackle the greatest barriers to opportunity for low-income residents, including education, housing, health care, transit and jobs. Living Cities and its members are making a total investment of $15 million in grants, $15 million in low-interest and $50 million in commercial debt. Detroit, Baltimore, Cleveland, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Newark, New Jersey were the five cities selected from among 23 competing cities.
In Cleveland, the Cleveland Foundation describes its plan of how it wishes to invest its estimated award of $14.75 million over three years here. Central among the goals: support the development of an additional 8-9 worker cooperatives, as part of the expanding network of Evergreen co-ops. Combined with development of Cleveland’s Health-Tech Corridor, the Living Cities grants and loans are anticipated to support the creation of 800 community jobs by 2013. For more on our work on this project, see our web section on the Cleveland Model. The Cleveland Foundation is coordinating the effort in partnership with the City of Cleveland, City of Youngstown, State of Ohio, Cleveland Clinic, The University Hospitals, Case Western Reserve University, National Development Council (NDC), BioEnterprise, Evergreen Cooperative Corporation, Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation, Kent H. Smith Charitable Trust, Minigowin Fund, and the Higley Fund.
For Detroit, the Council of Michigan Foundations provides a discussion of Detroit’s award here, which includes $2.75 million in grants, $4 million in low-interest, program related investments and $15 million in commercial loans. According to Detroit development officials, the new infusion of dollars will support the initiative’s work to use an anchor institution strategy to stabilize neighborhoods adjacent to the Woodward Corridor, including creation of at least 200 new units of mixed-income housing, along with renovation of at least 75 properties through a community land trust. According to Mayor Dave Bing, Detroit aims to attract 10,000 new residents to the corridor and generate $50 million in additional vendor and supplier opportunities to local businesses. Leaders in the Detroit effort are University Cultural Center Association (UCCA), Kresge Foundation, and The Skillman Foundation. Partners include the Michigan State Housing Development Authority, the City of Detroit, NCB Capital Impact, Vanguard Community Development Corporation, Data Driven Detroit and major anchor institutions, including the Detroit Medical Center, Henry Ford Health System, and Wayne State University.
For Baltimore, the Baltimore Integration Partnership received an award from Living Cities pf $2.75 million in grants, $12 million in commercial loans and up to $4 million in low-interest-rate loans. Led by the Association of Baltimore Area Grantmakers (ABAG) and The Reinvestment Fund (TRF), a leading community development financial institution (CDFI), the Partnership aims to invest in East Baltimore Development Initiative (EBDI), a massive redevelopment effort involving the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Johns Hopkins University that includes new homes and a biotech park. A second area of focus is on West Baltimore around the proposed Baltimore Red Line. All told the Partnership aims to connect at least 1,200 residents connected to job services, 840 of whom it is hoped will gain jobs working directly for partner institutions and/or in building city infrastructure. The project aims to also build 400 units of mixed-income housing and 346,000 square feet of mixed-use commercial space. Program partners include city and state government; a number of foundations including the Annie E. Casey Foundation and four local foundations, including (namely, the Goldseker Foundation, the Baltimore Workforce Funders Collaborative, Associated Black Charities, and the Baltimore Neighborhood Collaborative, two area anchor institutions (Johns Hopkins University and the Maryland Institute College of Art), and four local nonprofits: the Job Opportunities Task Force (JOTF), the Central Baltimore Partnership (CBP), East Baltimore Development, Inc. (EBDI), and the Central Maryland Transportation Alliance (CMTA)
For Minneapolis-St. Paul, like Baltimore, the focus is on supporting transit-oriented development. Led by the Saint Paul Foundation and the McKnight Foundation, a broad range of community wealth building partners are involved, including the Family Housing Fund, the Twin Cities Community Land Bank, Twin Cities LISC, Neighborhood Development Center, Metropolitan Consortium of Community Developers, the Urban Land Institute-Minnesota, and the Itasca Project. The project also involves a number of public sector partners including Minnesota Housing, the Metropolitan Council, Hennepin and Ramsey Counties, and the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. The award, administered by the Saint Pual Foundation, includes $2.75 million in new grants, $10 million in loans, and $3 million in low-interest program-related investments.If all goes as planned, the Living Cities award will result in up to 600 units of new or renovated affordable housing, located mainly along the Central Corridor Light Rail Transit line, which is being built to link Minneapolis and St. Paul. Another 100 neighboring businesses along the Central Corridor are also slated to get technical assistance, façade face-lifts and other improvements.
Newark, New Jersey will receive an award of $2.75 million in grants, $3 million in low-interest, program-related investments, and $9 million in commercial loans. Newark’s Strong Healthy Communities Initiative intends to use a “social determinants of health” framework to improve the economic and social well-being of targeted low-income communities through systems transformation as well as coordinated investments in housing, education, health care and healthy food options, including support for urban agriculture. Newark’s effort is being coordinated by Center for Collaborative Change and Prudential in partnership with the City of Newark, Newark Public Schools, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The effort is further supported by 30 partner organizations, including city and state government, nonprofits, businesses, private foundations, and research institutions.
Founded in 1991, Living Cities is a philanthropic collaborative of 22 of the world’s largest foundations and financial institutions. Foundation members of Living Cities are AARP Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Citi Foundation, Cleveland Foundation, Ford Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Surdna Foundation, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Skillman Foundation, and W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Financial services sector members are AXA Equitable, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan Chase, MetLife, Inc., Morgan Stanley and Prudential Financial.