The District of Columbia is becoming increasingly more segregated by race and income. As outlined in the Urban Institute report The Color of Wealth in the Nation’s Capital, this segregation is built on racist public and private practices, and has amplified disparities and inequities in health, education, work opportunities, with effects that continue today.   LEARN MORERead More

For the District’s extremely low-income residents, affordable housing can serve as a foundation for overall stability and well-being. Yet the District’s recent efforts to create and preserve affordable homes, whileimportant, have not substantially expanded the availability of housing affordable to city’s lowest-income residents. By examining the subsidy cost of addressing severe rent burden among DC’s extremely low-income residents, this report contextualizes the District’s present investments and outlines a ten-year blueprint to create 30,000 units of deeply affordable housing.   LEARN MORERead More

Summary $100 million for the Housing Production Trust Fund $10 million added to the affordable housing preservation fund $1.5 million to provide rent vouchers for families on the DC Housing Authority waiting list $5.1 million new operating subsidies for affordable buildings, including: $3.3 million to make units developed through the Housing Production Trust Fund affordable to the extremely low-income households, $1 million to help existing affordable units to serve lower income levels, and $850,000 for public housing properties redeveloped through the New Communities Initiative $9.2 million added to Targeted Affordable Housing for residents exiting homelessness $9.2 million boost to downRead More

The District has made substantial investments in affordable housing in recent years, though levels are still far short of what is needed. Where have those investments gone? And which income levels are being served? DCFPI’s new interactive map lets you explore affordable housing that has been newly created or preserved since 2015. The map uses a unique, comprehensive dataset complied by DCFPI. With the release of the map, this detailed, project-level data is available in one place for the first time.   LEARN MORERead More

THE FUTURE OF IMPACT INVESTING IS LOCAL September 21, 2018 / Key takeaways of the City First Community Development Finance Impact Forum/ Blog Why Local? Coffee & Conversation Brian Argrett, President and CEO, City First Bank The purpose of this event is to share insights and lessons learned that can pave the way towards economic equity. This forum is one of three events that will focus on specific topics in more depth instead of having one event. Who is in the room? Investment, think tank, government, corporate, and foundation leaders. City First has convened people across sectors to participate inRead More

A Q&A with Carl L. Hairston, Executive Vice President and Chief Lending Officer for City First Bank Close your eyes and imagine there was a bank whose mission was to create a society in which every individual, family, and community had the opportunity, access to capital, and resources to allow them to improve their well-being and prosper. LEARN MORERead More

IMPACT INVESTING WITH LISA GREEN HALL September 27, 2018 / Q&A / Blog Lisa Green Hall is an industry pioneer at the forefront of place-based Impact Investing, serving as a Senior Fellow at both Georgetown University’s Beeck Center and Case Foundation. Taking on what she has learned from DC’s investing market, Ms. Hall recently joined City First Bank’s Board of Directors, where she provides strategic counsel, guidance, and oversight of the Bank. This week, Ms. Hall sat down with us to share her experience as an impact investor in the District. Read on for her take on “opportunity zones,” necessaryRead More

The tax bill passed in 2017 includes a provision creating various benefits for investors that move capital gains into designated low-income census tracts, known as Opportunity Zones, through special investment vehicles known as Opportunity Funds. READ MORERead More

Opportunity Zones is a new federal incentive that offers capital gains deferrals, reductions and abatements for investments made in designated Opportunity Zones. READ MORERead More

The tax bill passed in 2017 includes a provision creating various benefits for investors that move capital gains into designated low-income census tracts, known as Opportunity Zones, through special investment vehicles known as Opportunity Funds. READ MORERead More