• TRF Receives $1.5 Million CDFI Fund Award

• Philadelphia Foreclosure Diversion Court Program Releases Report of Findings

• Increasing Affordable Housing in East Baltimore

• TRF Awarded NEA "Our Town" Grant

• Study Examines $1.2 Billion in Charter School Loans and Finds Few Defaults

• Expanding Healthy Food Access in Low-Income Communities

• TRF's Charter School Lending Tops $200 million

• TRF Workshop Kicks Off CDFI Fund's Capacity Building Initiative on Healthy Food Financing

• New Rental Housing Development in South Jersey

• TRF in the News

TRF was one of 155 Community Development Financial Institutions that received a portion of the $142.3 million awarded by the U.S. Treasury to benefit organizations serving economically distressed communities nationwide. The awards were through the fiscal year 2011 round of the CDFI Fund’s cornerstone program, and represent the largest single round of monetary awards in the CDFI Fund’s history. TRF received the highest award available, which it plans to use to support its core lending activities, especially in Baltimore and Philadelphia.

On June 14, 2011, the Philadelphia Residential Mortgage Diversion Program

A Newsworks video showing some highlights from the 3rd anniversary event of the Philadelphia Residential Mortgage Diversion Program.

 commemorated its 3^rd anniversary with Ira Goldstein presenting, for the first time, findings from TRF’s evaluation of the program. Instituted by the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas in an effort to stop Sheriff Sales and put in place a mandatory case management system in the Court, the Philadelphia Diversion Program seeks to keep homeowners facing foreclosure in their homes. The program also seeks to preserve and protect neighborhoods from the ravages of foreclosed properties, intervene early in the processing of foreclosure cases, and increase the effectiveness and efficiency of case management support for homeowners. With support from the Open Society Institute and the William Penn Foundation, TRF assessed outcomes and impacts from inception through March 2011, reviewing the 16,000 cases handled by the Court. These findings suggest that the Diversion Program has had a positive impact on the likelihood that a homeowner in foreclosure would keep their home. View media coverage and read TRF's report for more details on the program's impact.

TRF is financing the second phase of a housing project by Mi Casa, an organization which aims to provide quality home-ownership opportunities to low- and moderate-income people. This will be the first loan to close under the Baltimore Integration Partnership, part of the Living Cities Integration Initiative. TRF is the financial intermediary for the Baltimore initiative. The three phase project will rehab 50+ units across 37 properties in the Johnston Square neighborhood in East Baltimore. Phase II will rehab 12 rowhome shells to create 10 homeownership units and 2 rentals. The project will bring affordable housing options to a wide range of neighborhood families and connect local residents with job opportunities created by the construction.

 TRF Awarded NEA “Our Town” Grant

TRF will receive a $250,000 grant from the National Endowment of the Arts as part of its "Our Town" program. Using this grant, TRF will partner with the University of Pennsylvania’s Social Impact of the Arts Project and the City’s Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy and Commerce Departments to build and launch a Creative Assets Mapping Database for Philadelphia. The project will advance research related to the relationship between cultural engagement and economic development, and produce a web tool for planning, marketing, policy development and public/private arts investment strategies. According to Philadelphia Mayor Nutter, the PolicyMap geodatabase will be “an innovative tool that will serve as an asset to leverage the role of arts, culture and creative businesses in helping the City be a place of choice for businesses and residents.” The inaugural round of the "Our Town" grants is designed to create public-private partnerships to strengthen the arts while shaping neighborhood social, physical, and economic characteristics. TRF's grant was one of 51 awarded nationwide. For more details, read the City of Philadelphia's announcement of the award.

Study Examines $1.2 Billion in Charter School Loans and Finds Few Defaults

TRF partnered with the Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF) and Raza Development Fund to engage Ernst & Young, LLP to study charter school characteristics related to loan performance. Funded by the Bank of America Charitable Foundation, the resulting report, A Decade of Results: Charter School Loan and Operating Performance, offers a glimpse into charter school lending based on data from 15 lenders. The study found that stronger academic performance is associated with better loan performance. Unlike other public schools, charter schools have limited access to public buildings and public financing mechanisms and require financing for their facility needs. While traditional banking institutions have been reluctant to lend to the sector, CDFIs have stepped in to meet their financing needs. “TRF was among the few CDFIs in the nation that began underwriting charter schools more than a decade ago,” shares Sara Vernon Sterman, Executive Vice President for Community Investments and Capital Markets at TRF. “The results of this study offer a strong case for more conventional lenders to invest in charter schools that offer educational choice to thousands of low-income children and families.”  

 Expanding Healthy Food Access in Low-Income Communities

The Mariposa Food Co-op in West Philadelphia and Greensgrow Farms' expansion into Camden, NJ highlight alternative approaches to increasing healthy food access in low-income communities. Late last month, Mariposa broke ground on construction for a new store location in West Philadelphia. Mariposa has had double-digit sales growth in the last several years but its small space limited the co-op’s ability to accommodate new members and guests. The new store, which TRF has helped finance, allows Mariposa to serve more families and offer an expanded selection of locally-produced, organic, and conventional products. In Camden, TRF is working with Greensgrow Farms to bring a mobile farmers market to four local neighborhoods, offering fresh produce at affordable prices and accepting food stamps. These units are also working with other local agencies to offer vision screening and blood pressure testing on site. In addition to these mobile markets, Greensgrow plans to operate a farm stand and create a neighborhood-based Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program to provide families with a weekly selection of fresh produce, with members receiving free educational and cooking classes at a community commercial kitchen.

TRF recently closed on a loan that increases its charter school lending portfolio to $207.5 million, serving over 31,000 students. The recent loan was its second charter school financing funded through the JP Morgan Chase New Markets Tax Credit Charter School Fund. TRF provided a $11.3 million to Pan American Academy Charter School (PAACS), which provides one of the few dual language education options for a growing Latino population in Philadelphia. The school was founded in 2008 by Congreso de Latinos Unidos, a nationally recognized, nonprofit organization that has been providing social, economic, education and health services to the Latino community in Philadelphia for over 30 years. With this financing, PAACS will move from an older, substandard facility into a newly constructed education and training center that will be able to accommodate 717 students in grades K-8, the school’s maximum charter enrollment. 

 TRF Workshop Kicks Off CDFI Fund's Capacity Building Initiative on Healthy Food Financing

The CDFI Fund’s Capacity Building Initiative is providing a series of training workshops, informational resources and individual technical assistance to ensure CDFIs have the capacity to meet the needs of their communities. Working with the Opportunity Finance Network, TRF shared its expertise at the first of a series of eight healthy food financing workshops for CDFIs to be held across the U.S. from June 2011-June 2012. The workshop included sessions on evaluating healthy food projects within the context of the food system, estimating project feasibility using data driven models, and the importance of convening community partners. CDFIs that have completed the workshop training are eligible for an assessment that can lead to individual technical assistance from OFN’s subject-matter experts, including TRF. The next Healthy Food Financing workshop is scheduled for August in Madison, WI. For more information on the initiative and to register for upcoming workshops, visit the CDFI Fund's website.

 New Rental Housing Development in South Jersey

  TRF in the News

• Detroit Mayor Bing announces a short-term intervention strategy based on neighborhood analysis supported by TRF and its partners, part of the City's DetroitWorks Project.

• TRF's PA Fresh Food Financing Initiative is the model for First Lady endorsed CA FreshWorks, which TRF has advised in its development.

• TRF's Don Hinkle-Brown speaks at U.S. Department of the Treasury CDFI Fund hosted symposium on the role of CDFIs in the Living Cities Integration Initiative.

• TRF's City Arts project in Baltimore receives National Affordable Housing Management Association (NAHMA)'s Vanguard Award for New Construction of a Small Property.

• New York Times article highlights TRF-financed Queen Theater and its role in reviving Wilmington's Market Street corridor.

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