HFFI Funding Round Opens and more

Reinvestment Fund is inviting applications for the 2020 round of the Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) Targeted Small Grants program. The 2020 HFFI round significantly increases the available funding compared to the previous round, making $3 million in grant funds available for food retail and food enterprises working to improve access to healthy food in underserved areas, to create and preserve quality jobs, and to revitalize low-income communities. Funding for HFFI is provided by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), authorized by the Farm Bill. Financial assistance is available in the form of direct grants to projects selected through a competitive application process. The program is open to food retail and food enterprises working to improve healthy food access. Read More.

Rallying Community in a Crisis

Reinvestment Fund was honored to provide critical funding as part of a New Markets Tax Credits transaction to launch Open Works in 2017. From its earliest days, Open Works was poised to be an anchor for the Station North Arts & Entertainment District in Baltimore. Since its opening, it has become a vital community asset for people from across the city to learn new skills, build new relationships, and launch new businesses. Today, Open Works is also a critical player in Maryland’s response to COVID-19 and, along with other makerspaces across the country, is catalyzing its community-based manufacturing capacity to respond to the urgent needs of people on the frontlines of the global pandemic. Read more.

PolicyMap’s Health Risk Index

In an article this week titled “Where Chronic Health Conditions and Coronavirus Could Collide,” the New York Times worked with PolicyMap to develop an index of health risk to severe COVID-19 illness. The New York Times interactive assigns a severe coronavirus risk designation for every county in the US based on PolicyMap’s Index. You can find the NYT Health Risk Index, PolicyMap’s new COVID-19 Quick Maps tool, and more now in a new PolicyMap resource that provides publicly available maps, data, and insights to answer COVID-19 questions in your community. Learn more.

News & Resources

News: Where Chronic Health Conditions and Coronavirus Could Collide – New York Times uses Policymap‘s health-risk index to explore vulnerability to severe COVID-19 illness. Large parts of the South and Appalachia are especially vulnerable.

Resource: The communities we serve feel the deep financial and social impacts of COVID-19. Here are some small businesses & nonprofits in our portfolio & ways you can help them.

News: For minority-owned businesses shut out of coronavirus loans, an ongoing push for access. ABC News article spotlights how with the help of CDFIs, like the Reinvestment Fund, they are getting help.

Resource: NJCNF is accepting applications for grants to help Child & Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) & Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) organizations to continue meal service in response to COVID-19 disruptions through the summer.

Resource: Philadelphia Landlord-Tenant Court processes approximately 20,000 eviction filings each year. New Reinvestment Fund research looks at the impact of the Judgment by Agreement (JBA) process to resolve eviction disputes.

News: Without more federal funds, half of all child care centers could close forever. The Hechinger Report spotlights Reinvestment Fund’s Philadelphia Emergency Fund for Stabilization of Early Education (PEFSEE) that is giving child care providers a temporary boost.

Job Opening: Reinvestment Fund is seeking to hire a Summer Associate within the lending and investment department to support the Paycheck Protection Program.