Investing in Health Equity

5.17.2021 — LISC StoriesHealth

LISC LA advances health opportunities through investments in the social determinants of health such as education, career, income, community safety, and the built environment.

Our approach is comprehensive--rooted in what neighbors want for themselves, their families, and the places they call home. At LISC LA, we aim to bridge the gap to advance racial health equity, wealth, and opportunity.

We achieve our goals through:

Lending
Direct grants to support health-based initiatives
Safety and justice
Financial Opportunity Centers
Partnerships with hospital systems, such as Kaiser Permanente
Project 10X

Lending

LA’s Special Needs Networks (SNN) is a nonprofit organization that offers behavioral therapy services to children residing in low-income households. LISC LA invested in SNN with a $325,000 line of credit to bridge their grant receivables.

Image courtesy of Special Needs Network

Direct Grants to Support Health-Based Initiatives

LISC provides support via direct grants in support of health-based initiatives. The NFL Foundation Grassroots Program provides grants that improve the quality of life for low and middle-income community members as the opportunities for recreation and education are created through play. The Program provides financial and technical assistance to non-profit organizations to improve safety and accessibility of local football fields.

SÜPRMARKT is a black-owned, woman-owned, low-cost organic grocery that provides organic produce to low-income communities in LA on a weekly basis. Recently, SÜPRMARKT sought financing from LISC LA for tenant improvements on a grocery store in Crenshaw. LISC LA supports and welcomes these types of initiatives, as such we provided a $250,000 recoverable grant for this project.

Safety and Justice

Latinx, Black, and other people of color comprise a majority of the jail population in LA county. A January report by the RAND Corp. estimated that 61% of the jail mental health population could be treated outside the prison system.

We offer an integrated set of tools and expertise to community-led organizations and coalitions that support alternatives to incarceration and improvements in health and safety. As such, communities are transformed, systems are reshaped and people are uplifted.

Through its partnership with LA County’s Alternatives to Incarceration (ATI) Unit, we embrace the “care first, jails last” model to support the expansion of pre-trial diversion programs across the region. Pre-trial diversion programs prevent and remove individuals from incarceration and into the care of service providers that offer housing, health and mental health counseling, substance abuse treatment, employment support, navigational assistance, benefits assessment and other services. Through the ATI Incubation Academy, LISC LA identifies, builds the capacity of, and provides training and technical assistance and training to local nonprofit organizations so they can partner with LA County on pre-trial diversion efforts.

Financial Opportunity Centers

LISC provides employment and career counseling through our Financial Opportunity Centers. These centers are career and financial coaching facilities offering one-on-one financial counseling as well as low-cost financial products designed to build credit, savings, and assets. These FOCs also offer technical assistance, training, grants, data collection tools as well as professional network support.

Partnerships

A 60-million-dollar partnership has been established between LISC and Kaiser Permanente. This was done to assist businesses and communities recover from COVID-19 while supporting longer-term growth as well as workforce and talent development. With this partnership, loans are provided for small business investments and commercial real estate development so as to transform underutilized commercial and industrial corridors. Importantly, flexible lower-cost financing and loans that are usually unavailable through conventional lending are provided particularly for underserved businesses and entrepreneurs of color in Southern California.

Project 10X

This is one of LISC’s most ambitious projects. It is a $1 billion plan aimed at closing the racial health, wealth, and opportunity gaps via the raising and dissemination of capital to assist in building shared prosperity while tackling racial inequality. Through Project 10X, we are able to advance health opportunities through investments in homeownership and small business ownership as well as community safety and access to food. Project 10X also enables us to generate sustainable equity and wealth for people of color as credit and savings are being built while financial institutions led by Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) are strengthened. Additionally, Project 10X aims to invest in community health, digital access, education, arts, and justice while giving support to jobs with good wages and benefits.

Our goal is to forge resilient and inclusive communities and we do that through strategic investments via loans and grants to finance health-based initiatives. Several programs and partnerships have also been established to greatly assist community organizations in garnering the requisite resources for the improvement of the health and wellbeing of underserved community members. All of this work contributes to closing the racial health gap in LA.