Local Initiatives Support Corporation Los Angeles (LISC LA) has released its 2021 Equitable Economic Recovery Toolkit, which provides local cities and municipalities with tangible steps to ensure that their COVID-19 economic recovery efforts are as equitable as possible. The community development non-profit is calling on local governments to create equitable economic recovery plans in order to empower those impacted most by the pandemic – particularly women and diverse individuals within small business communities.
Informed by LISC LA’s years of experience working in community and economic development and creating strategies that have successfully promoted equity and economic inclusion across Los Angeles County, the 2021 Equitable Economic Recovery Toolkit outlines how local governments can effectively use their resources to support economic development in communities hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The LISC LA 2021 Equitable Economic Recovery Toolkit includes:
“Economic inequalities have existed long before the pandemic and have only been exacerbated as our small business community struggles to remain open,” said Tunua Thrash-Ntuk, Executive Director of LISC LA. “If cities and municipalities expect to successfully recover from the economic impacts of COVID-19, local governments cannot forget about the small businesses that make up almost half of our country’s economic activity, and must provide them with the resources to survive.”
LISC LA has been at the forefront of Los Angeles County’s efforts to equitably recover the third largest economy in the world. Through collaborations with the County and City of Los Angeles and other economic development organizations LISC LA has been able to create equitable recovery programs like the LA Regional COVID-19 Recovery Fund, Keep Our Shops on the Block grant program, and encourage business growth through accelerators dedicated to women and diverse individuals, most recently with the Black Business Excellence Technical Assistance Initiative—the first Black Business accelerator program in the region dedicated to supporting Black-owned personal care businesses.
Businesses of color close more rapidly than white-owned businesses as a direct result of the lack of stimulus funding, demonstrating the dire need to invest resources into disadvantaged communities.
Access LISC LA’s 2021 Equitable Economic Recover Toolkit here.
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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 1979, LISC has invested $20 billion to build or rehab 400,500 affordable homes and apartments and develop 66.8 million square feet of retail, community and educational space. LISC LA’s mission is to work with local leaders to invest in housing, health, education, public safety, and employment – these basic needs must be tackled at once so that progress in one is not undermined by neglect in another.