U.S. News and World Report recently named Spartanburg, South Carolina the 12th fastest growing place in the country. This growth has put more pressure on an already strained supply of affordable housing, putting homeownership further out of reach for longtime Black residents. With support from LISC Upstate South Carolina, Oak and Ave Property Group – a Black-owned housing developer and full-service brokerage – is helping more families realize their goal of homeownership.

A dozen LISC offices work with TD Bank to create affordable housing in communities that need it most. In Upstate South Carolina, where our office opened in 2019, LISC benefits from the leadership of TD Bank’s John F. Verreault III, who chairs the Local Advisory Committee. In a new Q+A, learn why supporting affordable housing is so important to TD Bank, and to Verreault.

In collaboration with the Walmart Foundation, LISC announced funding to help eight community-based nonprofits increase access to healthy, affordable food in under-resourced communities. Located primarily across the Southeast region, grantees will undertake efforts ranging from farmer-led urban agriculture to mobile food markets to the establishment of a community food policy council.

The fundamental role of LISC AmeriCorps members is to serve essential community needs. With the onslaught of the coronavirus epidemic, our members are adapting and devising creative new ways to help the rural and urban residents they work with handle the seismic social, economic and public health shocks of the crisis. (Photo: Americorps members in Jackson, MS in 2019; Member Cynthia Renteria is third from left.)

by Maurice A. Jones, LISC CEO and President

LISC is taking swift action in response to the coronavirus pandemic, to mitigate economic impact on residents in the hundreds of communities where we work. We are launching the LISC Rapid Relief and Resiliency Fund to assemble and deploy resources to our local partners, small businesses and residents who are being hit hardest. The Fund will deliver operating capital, emergency subsidies and IT support, as well as technical assistance, to keep our partners and their communities strong and functioning through this unprecedented situation.

An investment of $2.5 million from Verizon is making it possible for LISC to begin offering critical relief and resiliency-building support to small businesses facing immediate financial threat because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The funding will go to make grants of up to $10,000, especially to entrepreneurs of color, women-owned businesses and other enterprises in historically under-served places who don’t have access to flexible, affordable capital. Verizon will highlight and bolster these efforts through their inaugural "Pay It Forward Live" online concert series.