JPMorgan Chase [1] announced five organizations will receive philanthropic capital as part of the firm’s $400 million five-year commitment [2] to improve housing affordability and stability for underserved households, particularly in Black, Hispanic and Latino communities.
JPMorgan Chase’s commitments will support organizations working to scale innovative housing models such as single-family housing production to increase the supply of affordable housing and homeownership. These commitments are part of JPMorgan Chase’s firmwide effort to address the housing affordability gap by using the firm’s business, data, policy and philanthropic resources. The announcement works alongside efforts in Chase’s Home Lending business to help drive change in the mortgage industry through:
- Hiring and expanding its presence within underserved communities;
- Enhancing products and services;
- Promoting increased diversity in the appraisal industry;
- Participating in policy reform
Additionally, JPMorgan Chase’s PolicyCenter is advancing data-driven policy solutions to improve homeownership opportunities weakened by the pandemic.
“Owning a home is a key factor to providing family stability and building generational wealth, but out of reach for far too many people, especially Black, Latino and Hispanic households,” said Abigail Suarez, Head of Neighborhood Development at JPMorgan Chase. “Today’s announcement will help address current barriers to homeownership and allow more families access to wealth building opportunities.”
As a result of uneven access to homeownership, the homeownership disparity between White households and Black, Hispanic and Latino households continues to grow. Long-term financial instability, a supply gap in affordable homes for purchase, and rising home prices continue to decrease the number of Black, Hispanic and Latino individuals and families becoming homeowners, with many of these problems being exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and related economic downturn.
These challenges are being addressed by the organizations receiving philanthropic commitments, including:
Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership (ANDP): With JPMorgan Chase’s $2.5 million three-year commitment, ANDP will work to advance affordable housing and racial equity by:
- Scaling its single-family housing production model,
- Growing its Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) lending platform,
- Prioritizing risk-sharing business partnerships with smaller, locally-based Black-owned real estate firms.
Center for Community Self-Help: With JPMorgan Chase’s $2.5 million three-year commitment Center for Community Self-Help will work in Charlotte, Chicago, Milwaukee, and other markets to increase access to homeownership by:
- Creating a 100% LTV and specialized mortgage product to address savings and debt-to-income challenges,
- Launching a Savings Account for Emergencies Program that operates like a mortgage reserve account.
Grounded Solutions Network: With JPMorgan Chase’s $2 million three-year commitment, Grounded Solutions Network will work in Atlanta, Chicago, Houston and Minneapolis to advance affordable housing by:
- Increasing technical skills, production rates, and capacity of community land trusts and other nonprofit housing programs through shared equity program supports,
- Creating a shared-equity mortgage conversion approach through the BIPOC Homeownership Stabilization Program to help distressed homeowners remain in their homes, preserve equity already accrued and share in a portion of future appreciation.
The Housing Partnership Network: With JPMorgan Chase’s $3 million three-year commitment, the Housing Partnership Network will work in cities across the U.S. to increase the supply of and access to affordable single-family homes by:
- Launching the Building Neighborhoods Fund to make flexible, equity-like capital available to develop, acquire and renovate new and existing single-family homes,
- Increasing the volume and velocity of mortgages to Black, Latino and Hispanic borrowers through a new Equitable Homeownership Collaborative, comprised of CDFIs committed to expanding access to homeownership.
Parity Homes: With JPMorgan Chase’s $2 million three-year commitment, Parity Homes will scale its approach to sparking upfront demand for homeownership opportunities in West Baltimore neighborhoods experiencing hyper vacancy by:
- Creating pathways for existing residents and other social collectives to purchase homes together block-by-block as a means of community-building and wealth-building.
“Innovation and scale are desperately needed to address the growing race-based homeownership gap and resulting wealth disparity,” said John O’Callaghan, Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership President and CEO. “This support from JPMorgan Chase will enable us to grow our model, deploy more capital through small, undercapitalized Black-owned real estate companies, and develop homes that provide affordable housing and generate critical wealth for families.”
JPMorgan Chase will work with the Urban Institute to test and scale these innovations, including measuring impact and sharing insights with the housing industry to advance housing stability and affordability for Black, Hispanic, and Latino households.
“I am proud of Urban’s work with JPMorgan Chase to identify, assess, and expand these solutions,” said Urban Institute president Sarah Rosen Wartell. “I look forward to supporting the grantees as they advance innovations to address the nation’s housing affordability crisis and overcome homeownership barriers that have stifled opportunity for households of color.”
Advancing Data Driven Policy Solutions
Last year, the JPMorgan Chase PolicyCenter released data-driven policy recommendations to increase equitable access to stable, affordable and sustainable homeownership. These recommendations mirror the impact of the work being done by the organizations receiving philanthropic commitments. For example, the firm is supporting policies and industry practices that:
- Build on COVID-19 protections to effectively support homeowners experiencing income disruption;
- Expand funding to increase supply of affordable homes for purchase;
- Advance reforms to increase mortgage market liquidity and improve access to affordable sustainable mortgages that better serve Black, Hispanic, Latino and low-income borrowers;
- Advance fair housing and mitigate bias and discrimination in the home valuation process;
- Create potential pilots including those that evaluate establishing mortgage reserve accounts.
These commitments are part of the firm’s $30 billion commitment [3] to advance racial equity and drive an inclusive economic recovery that was announced in October 2020. To learn more about how JPMorgan Chase is working to bridge the racial wealth gap, click here [4].