Community Foundation makes $4 million loan to spur affordable rental housing in Palm Beach, Martin counties

WEST PALM BEACH – In response to the growing need for affordable rental housing in Palm Beach and Martin Counties, the Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties has made a $4 million low-interest loan to the Florida Community Loan Fund (FCLF), a nonprofit statewide lending institution.

The investment in affordable housing is one of the largest ever made nationwide by a community foundation to a Community Development Finance Institution. The announcement took place at the Florida Housing Coalition’s statewide affordable housing conference in Orlando.

The Community Foundation used a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to fund the loan. 

“The Community Foundation strives to provide community leadership and solutions through the power of informed and disciplined philanthropy,” foundation Chairman William M. Matthews said. “We are deeply grateful to the MacArthur Foundation for their continued support of the Community Foundation, now totaling more than $27 million, and for the example they have set nationally in mission-related investing.”

"With a decline in the number of rental units, the rising cost of housing and growing affordability gaps, the Community Foundation, through their partnership with the FCLF, is rightly taking action to ensure that low income and working families have the opportunity to live in decent, affordable, nearby housing," said Julia M. Stasch vice president for human and community development of the MacArthur Foundation. 

Even with the foreclosure crisis and collapse of housing prices, housing is still unaffordable for most workers. A study commissioned by the Community Foundation last year found that, since 2000, the number of extremely cost burdened renter households increased about 40 percent in Palm Beach and Martin counties. 

“Home ownership is not, for many, an option or the highest and best use of their income,” Community Foundation president and CEO Leslie Lilly said during the conference. “The cost of even modest housing is a very expensive proposition, especially for those who are low income and, increasingly, middle income families.”

The FCLF will invest the $4 million loan in a new $25 million Affordable Housing Preservation Loan Pool Demonstration Program and other affordable rental housing projects in Palm Beach and Martin counties. FCLF financing will be made available to nonprofit organizations and their community partners to develop and preserve affordable rental housing units. 

FCLF will also place a community development professional locally and will continue to offer its other community development lending programs in Palm Beach and Martin Counties.

“The Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties became involved in affordable housing because it is ultimately an issue of quality of life for the communities we serve,” Lilly said. “We know that if we as a community don’t act, we will lose a building block fundamental to the economic security of local families.”

For more information, please visit www.yourcommunityfoundation.org.