One Community Update
October 9, 2024

Source: The Daily Record

JPMorganChase Wednesday announced that nine nonprofits will receive funding as part of a new cohort of leaders working to address housing vacancy across Baltimore.

The cohort aims to stabilize housing supply and create more affordable homeownership opportunities for Baltimore’s legacy residents by increasing organizational capacity, strengthening local partnerships and expanding acquisition and rehabilitation of vacant and abandoned homes.

JPMorganChase is working with the Urban Institute and the Center for Community Progress to support the cohort through peer exchange, capacity building and learning opportunities rooted in the city’s unique context.

By facilitating peer learning and sharing insights with the broader housing industry, the cohort builds on the firm’s strategy to support impact through insights, including convening the strength and expertise of housing organizations across the city.

The Baltimore Housing Innovation Cohort will work to reduce housing vacancy, grow organizational capacity and shift systems to enable housing revitalization at scale. The cohort will leverage the existing strengths and expertise of housing leaders across the city, allowing partners to learn and grow together in a shared commitment to advancing housing solutions. This strategy is guided by the firm’s localized approach to creating impact by supporting and convening local leaders who know their community best.

Participants in the Baltimore Housing Innovation Cohort include:

• Black Women Build – Baltimore Inc. will rehabilitate vacant and deteriorated rowhomes in the Upton, Druid Heights, Penn North and Poppleton neighborhoods of Baltimore and provide skilled trades training, community- and wealth building opportunities. Participants in this program are then able to purchase the homes they help to build, increasing access to affordable, sustainable homeownership in Baltimore.
• City Life-Community Builders Ltd. will rehabilitate homes, advance personal and professional skills development and build coalitions of committed stakeholders working to shift Baltimore’s systems to address housing vacancy at scale.
• Druid Heights Community Development Corporation will implement the Bakers View Homeownership Development Project, a multiphase effort to produce affordable homeownership in one of Baltimore’s oldest communities. The Bakers View Homeownership Development Project is designed to further reduce density and crime, increase visit-ability, and make Druid Heights a sought-after community.
• Greater Baybrook Alliance Inc. will build organizational capacity and systems – including the ability to leverage Baltimore’s property acquisition programs – to advance whole block redevelopment in the Brooklyn, Curtis Bay, and Brooklyn Park neighborhoods of Baltimore.
• Green & Healthy Homes Initiative Inc. will advise cohort partners on healthy home interventions that can improve health, safety and energy efficiency outcomes, and will complete holistic housing interventions to help stabilize and preserve homeownership for seniors and family residents.
• North East Housing Initiative Inc. will acquire, renovate and sell affordable homes in northeast Baltimore City to low-income households through a Community Land Trust model that maintains permanent affordability of the home and land.
• National Community Stabilization Trust– Developing Affordable Starter Homes (DASH) Fund works to increase homeownership by expanding the supply of affordable, single-family homes to stabilize neighborhoods, build community wealth, and advance racial equity.   NCST continues to increase access to low-cost capital through the DASH Fund, a loan product available to emerging Baltimore housing developers that can be used for acquisition and development costs associated with revitalizing distressed and vacant single-family homes.
• ReBuild Metro Inc. will advance its block-by-block redevelopment of abandoned homes in East Baltimore, increase affordable and mixed-income homebuying opportunities, and expand its legacy homeowner repair program, all as part of a replicable and community-driven “whole block” redevelopment model that ensures both new and legacy residents benefit from neighborhood revitalization.
• Southwest Partnership Inc. will continue building organizational capacity to implement a Housing Plan focused on reducing vacancy and providing affordable housing options in three Baltimore neighborhoods – Mount Clare, Hollins Roundhouse, and Franklin Square neighborhoods.

JPMorganChase has served the Greater Baltimore community for more than 130 years. The firm has supported the placement of more than 12,000 local residents into apprenticeships, full-time, or part-time positions and the participation of more than 5,800 individuals in job training programs aligned with high-demand industries.

Since 2019 the firm has committed $16.7 million in philanthropic capital to the region where it serves as the bank of choice for more than 35,000 small business clients and 569,000 consumer banking customers.