BlueHub Loan Fund Receives $4.5 Million from CDFI Fund to Expand Lending to Affordable Housing and Community Facilities

October 30th, 2024

Capital Magnet Fund award will boost lending to projects serving low-income communities nationwide

BlueHub Capital today announces its affiliate, BlueHub Loan Fund, a leading national nonprofit community development financial institution (CDFI), has been awarded $4.5 in Capital Magnet Funds (CMF) from the US Department of Treasury’s CDFI Fund. The grant will help BlueHub Loan Fund address the need for flexible, low-cost, patient capital that is critical to construct, rehabilitate and preserve affordable housing, permanent supportive housing, and community facilities in low-income areas across the country.

BlueHub Loan Fund helps connect low-income communities with flexible financing to generate equitable and inclusive economic opportunity. It provides financing to affordable housing projects, community health centers, schools, grocery stores and other community assets across the United States.

Current economic pressures, deepening housing crises, increasing costs, and escalating competition for public resources have increased the need for CMF to support affordable housing and community facilities development. This need is particularly acute in cities in the Northeast and nationally that suffer from limited, oversubscribed and competitive state and federal subsidies and scarce or prohibitively expensive patient debt.

“This award is a recognition of our organization’s ability to meet the needs of the communities we serve at this critical time,” said Elyse Cherry, CEO of BlueHub Capital. “As BlueHub approaches 40 years of lending, we continue to push the boundaries of community finance to create new ways to build healthier communities. This award will help further that mission.” 

BlueHub Loan Fund is one of 48 CDFIs and nonprofit organizations to receive a CMF award this year, following the CDFI Fund’s competitive review of over 136 applications. This is the seventh CMF award for BlueHub Loan Fund, totaling a cumulative $36.2 million in funding.

“CMF enables us to support critical affordable housing and related economic development activities with more flexible, patient lending at below market rates,” said Karen Kelleher, President of BlueHub Loan Fund. “We will use this grant to support projects across our national target market where our scale, expertise and extensive partnerships catalyze complex projects and empower emerging developers and those from marginalized communities to establish a presence and be competitive in the real estate market.”

Since 1985, BlueHub Capital has lent over $3 billion and leveraged an additional $15 billion for projects that build inclusive prosperity in low-income communities across the country. BlueHub investments have helped to build, preserve or enhance over 33,000 units of affordable housing; support community health centers serving more than 284,000 patients annually; expand schools and youth programs serving over 85,000 children; and develop over 8.9 million square feet of commercial real estate and community facilities in communities.

About BlueHub Capital

BlueHub Capital is a mission-driven, nonprofit community development finance organization focused on building healthy communities where low-income people live and work. BlueHub uses innovative financial tools to support projects that make communities more vibrant places to live through four distinct programs: BlueHub Loan Fund (community development financing), BlueHub SUN (foreclosure relief), BlueHub Energy (clean energy access) and One Percent for America (citizenship financing).