On March 16th, Leviticus learned that it was awarded a $2.75 million grant from the federal CDFI Fund when it announced the winners of the Capital Magnet Fund (CMF). With this new resource, Leviticus will create a new lending pool to provide predevelopment, acquisition and bridge loans for development, preservation and rehab of affordable housing projects in New York State, particularly those serving very low- and extremely low-income families.
Leviticus was one of 40 organizations selected to receive a portion of the $120 million in total awarded funds. The CDFI Fund received 120 applicants in the 2017-funding-round with requests that amounted to almost $540 million.
Through our research and ongoing dialogue with nonprofit developers, it is clear that one of the most important resources that Leviticus can provide to get affordable housing projects off the ground is flexible, early-stage financing. Not many sources offer these types of loans (predevelopment, acquisition and bridge) to nonprofits, and fewer extend the flexibility that Leviticus is able to provide.
With the support of the CMF, Leviticus plans to provide more of these essential loans in the future, and at a lower interest rate.
CMF was created by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 and funding for the program comes from the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
