Daily Archives: March 27, 2022

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Published March 27th, 2022 at 6:00 AM

When Michael Stringer and Jason Milbrandt bought the iconic St. Francis apartment building at 300 Gladstone Blvd., around the corner from the Kansas City Museum, they saved it from demolition just one year before it would have turned 100 years old in 2012.

Eleven years and much reconstruction later, the work isnt quite finished. But now members of a nearby Catholic-based intentional community called Jerusalem Farm are helping to complete the job.

Since that nonprofit community was created 10 years ago to live out principles of prayer, community, simplicity and service, its members have done countless home repair jobs in the northeast area of the city. It has also led a curbside compost pickup program and engaged in other efforts to improve life in Pendleton Heights and nearby neighborhoods.

Theyve just done amazing work to improve this area, Stringer says.

Jerusalem Farm, located at 520 Garfield Ave., isnt really what you might think of as a farm (though it does have a greenhouse and helps with a Giving Grove orchard). But it has tried to be an urban version of a rural intentional community in West Virginia called Nazareth Farm.

The Foundation for Intentional Community lists similar communities around the world, including more than 20 in Missouri and a co-housing group, Delaware Street Commons, in Lawrence, Kansas.

Like other intentional communities many rooted in a religious tradition, some not Jerusalem Farm brings together people with similar ideas about how they want to live and the values required to live in that way.

Jordan Sunny Hamrick, who has been part of J-Farm for about seven years, puts it this way: One of the things that keeps us together is our common mission. Our mission isnt just trying to live together, but were trying to accomplish something together. Its working together for a better world where we take care of each other. Its acknowledging every day that we need each other, we need to show up for one another. And when we do that we make things better. We want to accomplish something that is bigger than each other.

Jessie Schiele, J-Farm executive director and wife of Jordan Schiele, the communitys project director, says, Catholic social teaching is our guidance for what we do. She isnt Catholic, but she attends a Catholic parish, her husband is on track to be ordained as a Catholic deacon and their children have been baptized Catholic.

At the moment, Jessie says, Jerusalem Farm has the largest community weve ever had 14 adults and five children.

In addition, (when not blocked by COVID restrictions) the farm attracts students for specific time-limited projects. Theyre called sojourners, people who want to commit from one to six months, Jessie says. In the year before the pandemic, J-Farm hosted more than 200 students a year.

Holding together an intentional community can be a struggle. As Jessie acknowledges: We have had people leave over how power is used, over personalities, over how decisions are made. Most people leave communities because of things like wanting to go to graduate school or other reasons. And communities that fail, she says, seem to do so because of bad leadership.

Another J-Farm member, Trinidad Raj Molina, says he has experienced some other intentional communities that werent very healthy, partly because they didnt know how to do conflict resolution among members. Some red flags I saw in other intentional communities I havent seen here.

At the Delaware Street Commons in Lawrence, the community isnt based on a common religious commitment but, rather, on a desire for close community and cooperation.

Rich Minder, who helps guide that co-housing community, says the idea was generated in 1999 but it took until 2007 to build the 23 houses and other structures and green space that make up Delaware Street Commons.

Families buy the homes in which they live, but they own only whats in the homes interior.

When you step outside your home, youre in community space, Minder says. We go on faith that people will contribute time for the community. Everyone contributes in a different way.

Each community funds itself in different ways. Delaware Street Commons, for instance, relies on assessments from homeowners based on square footage, while Jerusalem Farm is funded mostly by fees from participants in service retreats plus individual donations and grants.

And each community even those with shared religious backgrounds serves a different function. Unlike the home repair and environmental work that J-Farm members focus on, Cherith Brook Catholic Worker, near 12th Street and Benton Boulevard in Kansas City, ministers to homeless people by offering meals and showers, for instance.

At Jerusalem Farm, Jessie Schiele says she sees her community more as a bridge. The Catholic Church has pushed a lot of people away for a lot of reasons. We are very approachable to people and we are doing something that people want to be a part of.

What draws people to J-Farm, says Hamrick is a loss of community. I call us a community of liberation. A lot of the work that we do and the way we go about doing it seeks to liberate us from the entrapments we could fall into. Everyone finally gets fed up with being overworked and underpaid. When those things fall away and no longer serve us, we can liberate each other from the demands of a 40-hour work week and even the demands of having to cook yourself dinner.

In some ways, intentional communities resemble monasteries, not in their religious practices, such as silence, but in the way they model behaviors and attitudes that can be adopted by others who feel crushed by life and are looking for more sensible ways to live. In the process, they can feed and shower hungry people and fix up decaying homes and apartments.

Beyond that, they can bring some humor back to life. Why else would Jessie Schiele identify herself on the J-Farm website not just as executive director but also as popcorn-maker?

Bill Tammeus, an award-winning columnist formerly with The Kansas City Star, writes the Faith Matters blog forThe Starswebsite and columns forThe Presbyterian Outlook and formerly for The National Catholic Reporter. His latest book is Love, Loss and Endurance: A 9/11 Story of Resilience and Hope in an Age of Anxiety. Email him atwtammeus@gmail.com.

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Kansas City Area is Blessed with Intentional Communities - Flatland

Last Updated on March 27, 2022 by BVN

Antonio Ray Harvey | California Black Media

Most people attending a recent community meeting on reparations in the Bay Area had never heard of Russell City, an unincorporated majority Black community in Northern California that local authorities bulldozed in the 1960s, causing the displacement of most of its Black residents.

Many of Russell Citys African American residents had relocated to the Northern California town, located in present-day Hayward, to escape segregation and sharecropping in the South.

Russell City

Marian Johnson and Michael Johnson, sister and brother, testified at the meeting co-hosted by the Coalition for A Just and Equitable California (CJEC) with the support of the California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparations Proposals for African Americans. Both their grandparents and great-grandparents lived in Russell city.

CJEC is a statewide coalition of organizations, fighting for reparations for the descendants of enslaved Black Americans.

The Johnsons explained to the audience what Russell City meant to them and why they are supporting the push for reparations in California.

Russell City had a population of 1,400 people and 400 homes. It was a redlined community, and all the properties were taken by eminent domain, Marian Johnson said. In California, a lot of this happened and a lot of people did not know it happened. Its a secret. Now, its coming to light.

Task Force member Don Tamaki attended the meeting. He said the information shared during the discussion is pertinent to correcting the injustices that prevented Black families from building generational wealth.

What you are describing is what happened to the Fillmore District, the Harlem of the West, in the 1950s, where 20,000 were actually displaced and almost 900 Black businesses were destroyed because of eminent domain, Tamaki told California Black Media, referring to the historic majority Black San Francisco neighborhood known as the Golden Citys foremost Black cultural and political hub.

Russell City started as a farming community in 1853. It was founded by a Danish immigrant who provided sanctuary to African Americans before and after the Civil War.

As the community grew, it became independent, and culturally vibrant, Michael Johnson said. By the 1950s, though, Hayward leaders considered Russell City a blight to the surrounding area and sought to rebuild it as an industrial park.

On Jan. 8, 1963, Alameda County and Hayward officials began hearings to discuss the forced removal of Russell City residents. Soon after, authorities wiped out the entire community with bulldozers, and rezoned the land for industrial use.

Michael Johnson said one of his grandparents moved to Russell City because urban renewal pushed them out of the Fillmore District in San Francisco.

Ultimately, they moved those Africans, indigenous, and people of color into Russell City because they couldnt buy homes in Hayward or Oakland. Then, they determined it was a blighted area and forced them out, said Michael Johnson.

Bruces Beach

Since the reparations task force started holding meetings in June 2021, numerous accounts of private and state-backed land grabs targeting African Americans have surfaced. Some of the property was taken from Black landowners through eminent domain in the name of urban renewal projects. Others were stolen through fraud, intimidation and violence.

Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill to return Manhattan Beach property to descendants of the Bruce family who owned a beachfront resort in Los Angeles County before it was forcefully taken from them in the early 1920s.

Chris Lodgson, a member of CJEC, said he is asking other Black Californians like the Johnsons to come forward with their stories.

CJEC is one of seven organizations across the state that will hold listening sessions involving Black Californians from different backgrounds and regions of the state.

The community partners of the Richmond event were Parable of the Sower Intentional Community Cooperative (PSICC), Richmond Progressive Alliance, and the Bay Area Black Alliance for Peace (BAP).

Members of the National Black Liberation Movement Network (NBLMN) and AfroSocialists also attended.

The Richmond testimonies mirrored other accounts that have been shared with the task force. Another Southern California eminent domain case coming to light and to the attention of the task force had been obscured for over six decades.

Silas White and the Belmar Triangle

In 1958, Silas White, a Black entrepreneur, had a grand idea to open a recreational venue on Santa Monica Beach called the Ebony Beach Club. White had a vision for entertainment and leisure that would include golf tournaments, talent shows, and fishing trips.

Before White could move ahead with his plans, Santa Monica officials used eminent domain to take his property at 1811 Ocean Avenue. The facility was near a tight-knit community of Black Californians that lived, worked, and attended churches in the Belmar Triangle.

The city of Santa Monica demolished the building in January 1960 after White lost a court battle to keep the property. Subsequently, homes in the vicinity owned by Black people were burned to the ground to build the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.

In 2021, Hayward City Council voted unanimously to approve a resolution apologizing to African Americans and other people of color for the citys real estate and banking industries racially disparate impacts and inequities resulting from past City policy and decision-making, the council said in a statement.

The resolution also cites Haywards participation in federally sponsored urban renewal initiatives, which frequently resulted in the mass displacement and dislocation without fair compensation of largely Black households, neighborhoods, and entire communities across the country during the 1960s and 1970s, the council stated.

The Hayward Community Services Commission has drawn up a list of 10 steps the Bay Area City could develop to address past unfairness and complicity in historical racism and social injustices.

The program would also include working with surviving Russell City to determine appropriate restitution.

Michael Johnson said restitution should be reparations.

There are a number of things we want. No. 1, we want our land back. We have proof that we own the property, said Michael Johnson, who grew up in East Oakland. Secondly, we want all the leases turned over to the rightful owners of that land and the taxes collected over 58 years. The other form of reparations, that we see fit is maybe not having a tax on the land for the next 50 years.

Lodgson said more stories like Russell City will emerge as the listening sessions get underway.

There is so much work to be done. There is no turning back, Lodgson said.

The Reparations Task Force next two-day meeting will be held March 29 at 8:30 a.m. and March 30 at 9 a.m. You can participate or observe here.

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Town Hall on Reparations Reveal Stories of Land Theft - Black Voice News

Eight young Big Island leaders are acting to drive change in their communities by taking part in a national service program that builds the next generation of leaders.

Since Lead For Hawaii began last summer, fellows have tackled some of the Big Islands most pressing challenges, such as cultural and natural resource management, resiliency and disaster recovery and sustainable land planning. Lead For Hawaii is a Hawaii-based affiliate of Lead For America.

We believe young leaders who are born and raised in our local communities are best equipped to solve Hawaiis unique challenges, said Alexis Ching, Lead For Hawaii co-director and Lead For America senior community partnerships manager, in a press release. Lead For Hawaii recruits, trains and retains our most dynamic and innovative homegrown talent to solve old problems in new ways. In collaboration with government, nonprofits and private sector partners, our fellows create sustainable solutions informed by and aligned with Hawaiis unique culture, heritage and history. Through our work, Lead For Hawaii seeks to change the narrative that says success requires leaving Hawaii.

Prior to becoming a Lead for Hawaii fellow, Kevin Paka Pakamiaiaea Davis just completed his masters degree and was working in real estate. As a Native Hawaiian, Davis always planned to come back home after getting his education.

The reason I pursued my masters degree in sustainability and development was to be able to come home and contribute to creating a more sustainable future for our island, but there were no clear opportunities to bring my experiences back to Hawaii, said Davis in the press release. Lead for Hawaii presented the perfect opportunity for me to come home and continue learning, while applying knowledge gained during my undergraduate and graduate studies.

Today, Davis is one of two community impact planner fellows working under Hawaii County Planning Director Zendo Kern. In this role, he is focused on the county General Plan update, land use research and long-range planning. He is tasked with hearing from the community through a listening tour to create a project that serves and addresses a need in the community. Hes often thinking through large, complicated issues, such as climate change, affordable housing, preservation and resilient economic development, that can be difficult to deconstruct and simplify into meaningful action steps. He serves as a connector, building bridges between people and ideas in whatever spaces that he can.

From my first day, I have been honored and humbled by the experiences Ive been able to have in this fellowship role! Ive been able to sit in and contribute to discussions with key leaders and change makers in our community, Davis said. I feel like this fellowship is constantly challenging me to grow and expand my capacity for leadership and service in our community. Whether its through intentional training and exercises or through my daily assignments, I can sense my kuleana to our community and the people I care deeply about. I thank God for presenting me the opportunity through Lead for Hawaii to be working towards improving life in our community.

For Kuunahenani Keakealani, the Lead for Hawaii fellowship program was an opportunity to connect with Puuwaawaa as a lineal descendant by working on the lands that are her ina hnau (birthplace) while earning a paycheck. It also gave her the incredible opportunity to work alongside people with many years of experience in conservation.

As a Lead For Hawaii fellow, Keakealani is playing an active part in a partnership between the Akaka Foundation for Tropical Forests, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources Division of Forestry and Wildlife and lineal descendants in a project called the Puuwaawaa Community Based Subsistence Forest Area. It is the first community-based subsistence forest area in the state.

While working alongside mentors Nehu Shaw, Katie Kamelamela and Kainana Francisco, Keakealani has learned different conservation techniques, strategies and methods of fieldwork, data management and native forest restoration planning. The group is currently in the first stages of preparation for future outplanting of thousands of native plant species.

It is a privilege to step into my line of succession and later to pass the lamaku (torch) to the next in line. This project is something Ive known about since I was young and now that Im a young adult I am able to physically work the lands that give my ohana and myself life, said Keakealani in the press release. For me, working at Puuwaawaa is something I hold special to my heart because it is the land my grandfather has worked for generations. This is more about family tradition and continuation and certainly about the love we have for our aina and forests of na puu.

Recruitment for the 2022 cohort is underway, and Lead for Hawaii hopes the inaugural fellows work inspires others to join the next cohort of emerging leaders. Those interested in applying for the 2022 cohort have until April 15 to do so online.

In addition to serving in a paid, full-time role with a local nonprofit or government entity to address a critical community challenge, fellows begin their training with Lead For Americas Summer Institute in Washington, D.C., where they will learn about history, the most significant challenges facing the country today, how to build relationships across lines of difference and how to be an effective local leader in the community they call home.

The Kohala Center is one of the hosts for the 2021 cohort. According to the press release, Cheryl Kauhana Lupenui, president and CEO of The Kohala Center, appreciates the the opportunity to invest in leadership for Hawaii, from Hawaii.

Cindi Punihaole, director of the Kahaluu Bay Education Center for The Kohala Center, agrees.

It is wonderful to see our young adults develop a sense of responsibility and embrace what is pono, Punihaole said in the press release. For they are our future and will become the movers and shakers of Hawaii nei.

For more information about Lead For America or the Hawaii fellowship, click hereor email [emailprotected].

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Lead For Hawai'i Fellows Champion Change in Their Communities - Big Island Now

Its no secret that the U.S. has been marred by a housing crisis for decades. In the face of the housing shortage, architects have proposed higher density, modular construction, and even shipping container apartment complexes. Now, a new exhibition in San Francisco explores the potential for one of humanitys oldest forms of living to ease the countrys housing crisis: cohabitating.

[Photo: Henrik Kam]Titled House of Commons, the exhibition presents more than 35 examples from the Bay Area but also Baltimore; Berlin; Seoul; and Saint-Cloud, France. These case studies informed the design of five new proposals representing a range of flexible strategies to support social interaction and varying levels of privacy.

In San Francisco, the research has already been used to inform new policy around the definition of group housing, which was being exploited by developers and will now mandate a minimum of 33% shared spaces. The proposals, however, offer myriad approaches and layouts that can be used to inform co-living design in other cities as well.

The exhibition is on view now at the David Ireland House in San Franciscos Mission neighborhood. It was developed by local architecture firm the Open Workshop, based on research done by the firms founding principal, Neeraj Bhatia, and Antje Steinmuller, an associate professor at California College of Art.

When Bhatia moved to the Bay Area in 2013, he was immediately faced with the citys housing crisis and became interested in how different living arrangements could allow people to have control over their lives. I value my privacy and my solitude, and what I found through looking at various case studies is that there is a range of ways that people live together, and many of them embrace privacy as much as they do coming together, he says.

The exhibition is the culmination of five years of research into communities like R50, a six-story co-living project in Berlin, and the Jystrup Sawmill in rural Denmark, an L-shaped complex of townhouses connected by internal streets. One of the earliest examples that the team analyzed dates back to the 1960s, when the 80-acre Black Bear Ranch was born in Siskiyou County, California. Around that time, Bhatia says, about 1 million people in America were living in communes.

In the 1960s, there was . . . an emphasis on shared ownership, raising kids together, sharing labor, he says. Today, the motivations are much broader: Some people do it to bring down costs, others seek a community of like-minded people who share their lifestyle, values, and politics.

Many co-living developments are built in preexisting structures, like Chaortica, which is part of an intentional community network in San Francisco located in a century-old single-family residence with a garden and a greenhouse. Others, like the 18-story Starcity co-living startup in downtown San Jose, California, built their own buildings. Bhatia says that the Starcity development is geared more toward short-term stays for residents who are new to the city and want to meet new people while saving money.

Drawing lessons from all the examples the team studied, Bhatia created five speculative co-living designs. Each city has a unique set of cultures and challenges, so the architect eschewed context-specific proposals, but he says the different schemes relate to different densities, making them suitable for both urban and suburban environments.

Grids, for example, offers the most private scenario. It envisions a community organized around an urban grid, except in this version the streets are replaced with housing and the central blocks form courtyards, gardens, and shared spaces. Here, Bhatia was inspired by the idea of a collective outdoor room, much like the constellation of internal courtyards in Barcelonas Eixample district.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Surface scheme portrays an extreme example of people living together with very few walls, and boundaries defined primarily through curtains and movable furniture. The idea that walls are the sole mechanism to define these territories is eradicated, Bhatia says. This would be a scheme for those who are more willing to live together.

[Photo: The Open Workshop]The easiest way to implement any of these proposals would be to build them from scratch, but Bhatia could envision them fitting into existing buildings as well. The linear layout of Grids could lend itself well to former single-room-occupancy buildingswhere tenants rent out a room and share amenities like kitchens and bathroomsor hotels, which already come with long corridors flanked by rooms.

And Surface, which requires an open space that can be subdivided as needed, can be well suited to converted warehouses. Its about thinking about paths of least resistance and where development might get you more for less, Bhatia says. How do we produce something simple that can offer huge amounts of complexity?

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The takeaways from 35 co-living projects were distilled into these experimental designs - Fast Company

The real estate industry has long had a whiteness problem. An emerging developer of color challenges the state to help fix the appraisal gap and other injustices.

Bree Jones rolls deep. Her nonprofit real estate firm, Parity Homes, has a buyers collective of 60 households. They have all gone through a proprietary 6-month curriculum Jones built from scratch, covering everything from financial planning to maintenance, community building, and the history of redlining and how those factors continue to shape the Baltimore neighborhood where they all want to buy homes.

Its about building an intentional, mission-driven community, Jones says. We talk about common principles anti-gentrification, the importance of shared cultural assets, green space assets, things that arent part of our common dialogue in America anymore. Older generations did it in the 1940s-50s-60s.

Jones says her buyers collective members have all come through word of mouth so far. She talks about her work everywhere she goes like volunteering with a local church where a pastors family is now part of her collective. Some are from the area of West Baltimore where Parity Homes is focusing its work; others are originally from the area but moved out when they were teens and now want to move back.

Parity Homes keeps an architect on retainer to help buyers select one of six floor plans for Baltimores signature rowhouses. Options include splitting the home into a two-flat, to create some extra income for the homeowner and another affordable housing unit. Three buyers collective members have made their selection, and Jones hopes to deliver their homes later this year, hopefully by July.

They call me every week [to ask] hows the house coming along, Jones says.

For all that Jones has made possible so far, its not yet sustainable. For now, Parity is selling the homes for less than what the firm has paid to acquire them. Thats because the homes suffer from the appraisal gap, which disproportionately affects historically Black neighborhoods. After generations of disinvestment, which started with redlining in the 1930s, the homes today require significant rehab, the cost of which can far exceed the values that the homes will appraise for even after rehab.

Some help may soon be on the way. Last year, Maryland state legislators passed a bill to create the Appraisal Gap From Historic Redlining Financial Assistance Program. Jones says it started with a conversation between her and Maryland State Senator Antonio Hayes.

He had asked me to testify about a related issue and after I did that he asked if there was anything he could help me with and I didnt know better so I brought up the appraisal gap, Jones says. It was a little bit of beginners luck.

The funds would fill in the gap between the costs of rehabbing a vacant home or constructing a new home on a vacant lot and the appraised price at which the home eventually sells. However, the bill did not go into effect until the start of the fiscal year in Maryland on July 1, which meant the new program never made it into budget negotiations for that fiscal year.

Jones is banking on it being funded in this years budget, which is currently under negotiations. She knows other potential emerging developers like her especially other women of color would appreciate the support to do similar work in other disinvested areas across Maryland.

Financing mechanisms for entry-level housing stock are still few and far between, Jones says. Big federal programs like low-income housing tax credits or new markets tax credits dont really do it. Why not try to make something that fits us?

The real estate industry has long had a whiteness problem. According to Enterprise Community Partners, just 2% of real estate industry firms are Black-led. At the Urban Land Institute, one of the countrys major real estate developer networks, just 5% of its members are African American, while 82% are white and 69% identify as men.

Even the real estate sub-sectors of community development and affordable housing that serve many Black and Latino neighborhoods have helped perpetuate those disparities. In New York where Jones was born the nonprofit Community Preservation Corporation has financed tens of thousands of affordable housing units in communities of color since 1974, but according to its internal analysis, less than 10% of its lending had gone to developers of color.

Often lenders cite the lack of collateral. But that is a chicken-and-egg situation, given that the persistent history of redlining means white homeownership rates and typical white household wealth levels in general remain far beyond that of nonwhite households.

Jones wants to help break that cycle by getting the homes shes developing into the hands of primarily though not exclusively Black households. When otherwise talented but less experienced developers of color approach lenders with little to no wealth from family or friends as a starting point, most lenders find it challenging to work with them while also satisfying their regulators or rating agencies. Those number crunchers come in on a regular basis and scrutinize each and every loan that a lender has made since the last time they were there for an examination or rating update.

Its not impossible, but its very challenging for lenders to battle with regulators or rating agencies over and over again to defend multiple acquisition and construction loans to multiple emerging developers of color with little to no personal collateral even more so when everyone can see down the road that the developer may not be able to sell the properties at a price that can cover the cost of acquisition and construction. Often the lenders who are most willing to work with borrowers in these situations will also charge the highest interest rates on the market as compensation for taking on the perceived risk.

Bank regulation isnt inherently evil. The point is to ensure the safety and soundness of the banking system. But the reliance on personal collateral as a risk management factor to dominate all other risk management factors isnt necessarily set in stone, though it can seem that way if you dont have any collateral.

Jones has relied on corporate donors, state grants, philanthropic fellowships and a few personal connections to very patient seed investors to get Parity Homes going. Shes amassed a portfolio of 40 properties half through foreclosure auctions or private sales, and half via Baltimores annual tax lien sale. The lien sale is currently undergoing a major overhaul after complaints that its become a predatory means for big developers to snatch up large batches of properties.

Jones says the tax lien process could also be a lot friendlier to smaller, mission-driven developers like herself. In one ten or so block area shes been examining closely, she says shes identified at least 300 properties with tax liens, maybe 70% of them with liens in the six figures. Properties can take up to two years to drag through the foreclosure process. Theres so much inventory in Baltimore City, but its all locked behind liens, encumbrances and other barriers, Jones says.

The most recent statements from City Hall count 15,032 vacant houses in Baltimore City. Jones says the true number could be much higher perhaps four times as many. For every 50 vacant properties, Jones says, there may be 50 different owners, half of whom are deceased, a third are in defunct LLCs with outdated if any contact information, and the rest are owned by speculators who are trying to profit off other peoples trauma.

The situation bears similarities to other predominantly Black urban areas, like Chicagos South Side, where local community organizations and small emerging developers face a maze of tax liens upon mortgage liens layered in with a tangle of LLCs and dead-end brokerage phone numbers.

In this post-COVID housing market boom, Jones sees more speculators swooping in with all-cash deals in the neighborhoods where she has properties in the pipeline. Blocks where empty shells used to go for $5,000 are now selling for close to $100,000. Those sales might be connected to the technology-fueled passive real estate investing boom in single-family rental properties.

In its sales, Parity Homes puts in a soft-second mortgage essentially a slice of seller-financing that the buyer doesnt have to repay unless they sell the home later or refinance their mortgage. It helps keep the primary mortgage affordable for the homeowner while serving as a disincentive against house-flipping.

Given all the cards stacked against her woman, Black, new to real estate development, focused on neighborhoods faced with ownership challenges Jones is taking all the help that is worth her time. Shes an alumna of the Equitable Development Initiative, a program of Capital Impact Partners, a community development financial institution (CDFI) based in the D.C. area. The initiative is one of a bevy of similar initiatives created by CDFIs in recent years to help diversify their base of developers.

JPMorgan Chase funded the Equitable Development Initiative, which recently awarded a $2 million recoverable grant to Parity Homes, in conjunction with a larger $20 million commitment to Baltimore-focused investments, intended to support more women of color in real estate.

Were building the bench for diverse developers in this region, says Dekonti Mends-Cole, vice president for the Mid-Atlantic at at JP Morgan Chase Global Philanthropy.

The $2 million infusion enables Jones to finally hire her first full-time staff and get her the runway to acquire and sell at least 200 formerly vacant homes. If the appraisal gap program from the state kicks in, or perhaps new federal support from the proposed neighborhood homes investment tax credit, Jones might be able to acquire, rehab and sell even more.

Jones is also hopeful that with larger institutional support, the city will take emerging mission-oriented developers seriously as part of the solution to fix longstanding vacant property challenges.

The issue is so big it creates a feeling of helplessness, but an institutional partner makes it seem like we can actually do something about it, Jones says.

Oscar is Next City's senior economics correspondent. He previously served asNext Citys editor from2018-2019, and was a Next City Equitable Cities Fellow from 2015-2016. Since 2011, Oscar has covered community development finance,community banking, impact investing, economic development, housingand more for media outlets suchas Shelterforce, B Magazine, Impact Alpha, and Fast Company.

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This Baltimore Developer Is Breaking Down Barriers to Rebuild Communities - Next City