BlueHub Affiliates Receive Max Funding to Address Economic Challenges Created by COVID-19
BlueHub Capital today announces it has been awarded $3.6 million from the U.S. Department of the Treasury to respond to economic challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic. The grants will be made through the U.S. Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Rapid Response Program (CDFI RRP), as announced by Vice President Kamala Harris and Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen on Tuesday.
BlueHub Loan Fund and Aura Mortgage Advisors, both affiliates of BlueHub Capital, each received the maximum award of $1,826,265. BlueHub Loan Fund provides financing to affordable housing projects, community health centers, schools and other community assets in low-income areas. Aura Mortgage Advisors helps families facing foreclosure keep their homes and regain financial stability.
“The devastating impact COVID-19 has had on low-income communities of color is well-documented, and BlueHub has been and will continue to provide much-needed financing to support the neighborhoods that need it most,” said Elyse Cherry, CEO of BlueHub Capital. “We are able to leverage every grant dollar into more capital for underserved communities, compounding the impact of this award from the U.S. Treasury. We thank the Biden Administration for supporting CDFIs and for identifying BlueHub and our peers as catalysts of economic justice.”
BlueHub will use this funding to continue and expand its work lending to communities hit hardest by the pandemic, particularly communities of color. BlueHub recently launched the COVID-19 Housing, Opportunity and Wellness (C19-HOW) Fund, which addresses the devastating and inequitable health and economic impacts that COVID-19 is having on these low-income communities of color by supporting the creation of quality affordable housing.
The CDFI RRP grant funds will be used to provide financial products, financial services, development services and enable CDFIs to build capital reserves and loan-loss reserves. The CDFI Fund designed the program to disburse the funds rapidly in light of the nationwide economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Treasury awarded a total of $1.25 billion in COVID-19 relief funds to 863 CDFIs across the country.
About BlueHub Capital
BlueHub Capital is a national nonprofit community finance organization with a 35-year history of building healthy communities where low-income people live and work. Since 1985, BlueHub Capital has invested over $2.2 billion to support low-income communities, creating and preserving over 26,000 units of affordable housing, 13,000 jobs, healthcare services for more than 197,000 patients, education and daycare for more than 70,700 children, and prevented over 1,150 foreclosure-related evictions. To learn more about BlueHub Capital and the impact of its investments, visit bluehubcapital.org.