Reinvestment News Summer 2019

Caring for Patients and Workers

Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA) is a health care provider and worker-owned cooperative serving the Bronx and Manhattan, with over 1,000 worker members who are primarily women from communities of color. CHCA cares for 1,250 low-income patients every year who are disabled, elderly, or have chronic health conditions. CHCA also offers a free workforce development program that trains over 600 women annually, most of whom are low income and unemployed. About 70% of those trained are employed by CHCA upon successful completion, while the remaining get placed at another quality, unionized home care agency. Such training and access to well-paying jobs provides a critical path to economic security and wealth building for these workers. CHCA’s revenue comes through intermediary health management companies that contract with CHCA and pass through Medicaid funding for client services. When CHCA’s largest contractor ceased operations, the organization had to transition its operations to a new plan. With 750 patients and $1 million in weekly payroll to meet, CHCA needed a loan to bridge its cashflow gap. Financing from Reinvestment Fund and our co-lender, Shared Capital, allowed CHCA to continue providing critical care to its patients and sustainable employment to its worker-owners. Read more.

Keeping Homes Affordable in Changing Neighborhoods

Reinvestment Fund financing is incentivizing the development of unsubsidized affordable housing in Philadelphia’s Brewerytown. Located just north of Center City Philadelphia, the neighborhood, which is largely residential, is seeing increasing redevelopment and economic activity as a result of its proximity to the desirable downtown. A minority-owned development company, SAA | EVI, is renovating a mixed-use quadraplex rowhouse located on the neighborhood’s Girard Avenue commercial corridor. This will include ground floor retail store and three apartments above with rents that will be affordable to families earning as low as 80% of area median income. Given the location of the project in an area at risk of gentrification and the affordability of the rents, Reinvestment Fund is providing favorable rates in exchange for a commitment to cap annual rents increases to no more than 3%.  Read more.

News & Resources

• Report: A Reinvestment Fund working paper on the growing unsubsidized affordable housing phenomenon. The paper was first presented at the 2019 Federal Reserve Community Development Research Conference.
• News: Announcing 10 cities selected to participate in Invest Health Field Building.
• Just released: Our 2018 Annual Report is out. Read about our year and the ways in which we work to build strong, healthy, and more equitable communities.
• Article: “Economic development is different than community development.” To achieve success with Opportunity Zones, investors must coordinate with local groups—Don Hinkle-Brown in The Washington Post.
• Article: Reinvestment Fund’s Bridget Wiedeman discusses the role impact investing can play in making health care available to all.
• News: Check out the winning submissions that show how data and maps can tell a story and help solve a problem. The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy teamed up with PolicyMap to create The Place Database.
• Article: A 100% mission-aligned endowment—Reinvestment Fund investor Laura Kind McKenna shares how the Patricia Kind Family Foundation made this its 21st-century obligation.
• Report: Highlights from our Community of Practice convening in Kansas City, MO, that brought together cities using our Market Value Analysis to inform community and economic development activities in their communities.
• Profile: Reinvestment Fund financing is helping redevelop a former church building to create a new facility for Ethos Classical Charter School in Atlanta.
• Profile: Reinvestment Fund is financing the construction of a new early learning center serving low-income infants and toddlers in Ward 7 in Washington, DC.

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• Open position: Director, Compliance – Philadelphia, PA
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