Missouri: Beyond Housing's Save-A-Lot Grocery Store

Beyond Housing, Inc., a NeighborWorks organization, is working on a large-scale community development plan in Pagedale, a suburb of St. Louis. Pagedale’s median income is less than half that of St. Louis. Due to disinvestment, Pagedale has no affordable grocery stores. The few convenience stores nearby charge a high premium for convenience and do not carry produce, meat, or poultry. Last year, IFF provided a $1,245,000 loan to Beyond Housing to build a grocery store. The 17,000 square foot store will create 23 permanent jobs. Save-A-Lot, which will lease the building, is a national limited-assortment grocery chain. By purchasing fewer products in bulk, it will provide Pagedale residents with savings of up to 40 percent compared to conventional grocery chains. “IFF was instrumental in making this project happen” said Beyond Housing’s Executive Director, Chris Krehmeyer. “Financing grocery stores in low and moderate income communities is a daunting task but IFF’s flexibility, creativity, and knowledge of community development allowed this dream to become a reality.”

Illinois: Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago

The Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago (ECAC) serves the cultural, psychological, and socio-economic needs of immigrant communities in Chicago. Over the past 20 years, it has sponsored or resettled approximately 1,300 refugees. It also advocates for affordable housing for new immigrants. During the past year, the organization concluded that it did not have sufficient space to serve its communities. To address the problem, IFF loaned ECAC $950,000 to purchase a building to replace its current leased facility. The 19,000 square foot building will more than quadruple ECAC’s available space and will include 2,600 square feet of finished office space. In the words of ECAC, the newly bought two-story building will serve “as a home for the Ethiopian and the larger African communities in the Midwest.”

Wisconsin: Walker’s Point Center for the Arts

The Walker’s Point Center for the Arts (WPCA), a neighborhood arts education center in Milwaukee that provides art education to children and gallery space for local artists, began to face a shortage in space last year. A $200,000 loan from IFF will help WPCA acquire a building at 839 South 5th Street in the historic Walker’s Point neighborhood. The new building is significantly larger than the center’s currently leased site, and it will allow WPCA to feature both a curated contemporary exhibition and an additional salon to highlight WPCA members’ work. The new facility will also make it possible for WCPA to serve more at-risk youth in the community.

Charter Schools: Thea Bowman Leadership Academy, Gary, IN

Thea Bowman Leadership Academy (TBLA) in Gary, Indiana was the first school outside of Illinois to qualify for IFF’s credit enhancement program. Since 2007, IFF has helped TBLA expand to accommodate new grades of students. IFF provided short term financing with hopes of securing permanent financing from an IFF credit enhanced public bond issue (with funds from the U.S. Department of Education’s Credit Enhancement Grant Program). However, when the credit markets froze in the fall of 2008, the bonds could not be issued, and permanent financing for TBLA became uncertain.

In response, IFF laid the groundwork for an eventual bond issue, secured extensions on TBLA’s original construction loans and negotiated bond purchases with investors. In the meantime, TBLA opened as planned and on April 23, 2009, celebrated its expansion with a dedication ceremony. Finally, in December, 2009, IFF pledged $967,750 in credit enhancement to support a stand-alone bond issue of $19.29 million that provided TBLA the long-term, affordable financing it needed.

Housing: Crystal View Town Homes, Urbana, IL

In Urbana, Lakeside Terrace, a troubled and obsolete public housing complex had developed into a high-crime area. After it was demolished in 2006, developers struggled to revitalize the neighborhood. Now, IFF is working with Crystal View Townhomes, L.P.—comprised of Brinshore Development and Homestead Corporation—to build a 70 unit affordable housing development that will be affordable for families at a 30 to 60 percent area median income range. IFF made a $1.31 million first-mortgage position loan on the project. High energy efficiency and geothermal heating and cooling systems in the units will save households 40 to 50 percent in utility costs.

Health Care: Asian Human Services, Chicago, IL

Since 2002, IFF has worked with Asian Human Services (AHS), a remarkable organization that provides medical, social, and educational services to low-income Asian-American and other immigrant communities in Chicago. Until 2008, AHS leased property to operate a medical clinic. Facing a shortage of space, AHS began working with IFF in 2007 to purchase an existing medical clinic down the block from its old site. With IFF providing real estate services and a $750,000 loan, AHS bought and renovated a building that provided 5,000 square feet of additional space for twelve patient exam rooms. Because of its proximity to the old AHS clinic, existing patients can easily access the new building. The clinic opened in 2008 and in November, 2009 it held a dedication ceremony attended by Rep. Jan Schakowsky, IFF President Trinita Logue, and Senior Loan Officer Steve Bricker. As AHS wrote in its Annual Report, “IFF has played a crucial role in these building projects.”

Policy: HUD’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program

Through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP), IFF has been awarded a combined $12.27 million in grants from the Illinois Housing Development Authority and Cook County to acquire and renovate foreclosed or abandoned properties. Several of these NSP grants will support IFF’s Social Service Collaboration, a group of 15 nonprofit social service agencies that will join with IFF to provide supportive housing to the formerly homeless, the physically disabled and persons with mental illness and developmental disabilities in the Chicago Metro area. A portion of these funds will also be used to acquire and renovate foreclosed, abandoned, and vacant properties in the West Cook County suburbs of Maywood, Berwyn, Broadview, Bellwood, Oak Park and Forest Park, and to work with Cook County to convert vacant land or buildings into community facilities. For more information on IFF’s NSP initiatives, please e-mail Kate Ansorge at kansorge@iff.org.

Policy: Child Care Facilities Financing Act

IFF thanks Representative Danny Davis (IL-7) for becoming a cosponsor of the Child Care Facilities Financing Act, H.R. 1685 and S. 1002. This legislation creates a flexible pool of capital for early childhood facilities development in low-income communities across the country and authorizes the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to award competitive grants to organizations like IFF for this purpose. If you are a nonprofit child care provider, consider asking your representatives in Congress to support this legislation. For more information, please visit www.iff.org

Policy: U.S Treasury Department’s CDFI Fund

In February, President Obama submitted his FY 2011 budget to Congress – again proposing an increase in the U.S. Treasury Department’s Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund, from $246 million to $250 million.  The Obama Administration has consistently expressed its strong support for CDFIs and the critical role they play in providing credit, capital and financial services to low-income and other underserved communities.  In Congress, Representative Luis Gutierrez (IL-4) is calling for an even larger investment in CDFIs – $300 million – to help get capital flowing again to nonprofits and small businesses.  IFF strongly supports the Administration’s CDFI Fund budget and Representative Gutierrez’s proposal to strengthen it.  If you support the work of CDFIs like IFF, please ask your Member or Congress to sign on to Representative Gutierrez’s letter to increase the CDFI Fund appropriation.  For more information, please contact Virginia Zigras of Representative Gutierrez’s office at Virginia.Zigras@mail.house.gov.

Technical Assistance: Green Buildings for Nonprofits

At IFF, we believe “green design” is best implemented as a series of smart choices resulting in an energy-efficient facility that provides a healthy indoor environment and conserves resources. When successfully integrated into a project, these choices often don’t increase the project budget. In the cases where these choices could impact the project budget, we provide our clients with data needed for them to make an informed decision.

Over the next several months IFF will post a series of Technical Assistance Worksheets and Podcasts exploring what green design means for nonprofits. This month, David Reynolds, our Vice President of Real Estate Services will discuss “What Makes a Building Green?”.

If you have questions about green design, or any of IFF’s Real Estate Consulting Services, please contact David Reynolds at 312-596-5102 or dreynolds@iff.org.