Leviticus Fund Awarded COVID-19 Relief Funds

The Leviticus Fund will receive a $1.82 million emergency financial assistance award through the U.S. Treasury’s $1.25 billion CDFI Rapid Response Program (RRP) to support its lending within underserved communities especially impacted by the pandemic.

The announcement was made by Vice President Kamala Harris on June 15th at a White House event that included Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), and Senator Mark Warner (D-VA). Lisa Mensah, President and CEO of Opportunity Finance Network, which is a national association of CDFIs, including Leviticus, introduced Vice President Harris at the event.

The RRP award represent the largest single funding round in the CDFI Fund’s history. It was created to quickly deploy capital to certified CDFIs nationwide through a streamlined process, and 863 CDFIs received the historic emergency funding. Leviticus was awarded $1,826,265, which was the maximum amount granted to any single recipient.

“Throughout the pandemic, the Leviticus Fund has maintained a strong focus on lending, particularly for affordable housing to benefit very low-income people who were especially impacted by job losses in 2020,” said Greg Maher, Leviticus Fund’s Executive Director. “We are grateful to the CDFI Fund for this award, which when leveraged with additional private debt, will deliver even more of the highly flexible capital that our region needs to better serve low-income and vulnerable individuals and families.”

To view the announcement, click here