Affordable Housing
Affordable housing has benefits that extend beyond the walls of a home to the community at large. It boosts spending and employment in the surrounding economy, brings revenue into local governments and reduces the likelihood of foreclosure.
Our initiatives focus in areas where the flight of industry and jobs has left a vacuum of disinvestment and poverty and where housing can stimulate economic growth.
LISC invests in all kinds of affordable housing. We help develop new multi-family rentals, and preserve existing ones that could be lost to market forces or deterioration. We finance sustainable, “green” construction and rehabilitation, which makes for lower operating costs and has been proven to boost health outcomes for occupants and entire neighborhoods. And we lead foreclosure interventions that reinvigorate communities where foreclosure has decimated block after block.
To make this all happen, LISC provides grants, loans and equity for nearly every aspect of development, from planning and acquisition to construction and renovation. We do this through LISC affiliate, the National Equity Fund. Nationally, LISC also created the Community Development Trust, the first real estate investment trust specializing in affordable housing that continues to invest in affordable housing around the country. We offer technical assistance, data and mapping tools to community-based organizations working to improve the supply and condition of affordable housing in their neighborhoods. And we advocate for good housing policy at all levels of government.
