The $4.5 million award will provide flexible financing for affordable rental housing in Florida.
Florida Community Loan Fund, a statewide nonprofit community development financial institution, has received a $4.5 million Capital Magnet Award from the U.S. Department of Treasury Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund. This award will bring critical capital to Florida’s low-income communities, and allow FCLF to expand its lending for development of affordable rental housing in Florida’s low-income communities.
FCLF became the first statewide CDFI in Florida in 1996, and since inception we have provided $721 million in financing to nonprofits and mission-focused for profits. FCLF provides capital to projects and organizations to maximize opportunities for people and places outside of the economic mainstream. Affordable housing is critical to our mission as we seek to strengthen Florida’s low-income communities through loans that provide high impact.
Florida is among the 5 worst states with availability of affordable housing, with only 25 affordable homes available for every 100 extremely low-income households – far below the national average of 34. This equates to a shortage of 435,879 rental homes for these families. (Data from NLIHC 2024 Gap Report.) Extreme weather events further exacerbate the shortage of affordable housing in Florida, as low-income areas are often disproportionally affected by weather disasters.
The Capital Magnet Fund award will be directly applied to FCLF’s community development loan program, which to date has provided financing for nearly 7,000 units of affordable rental housing, including:
• Saint Stephen’s Way, Melbourne. 40 affordable and supportive housing units. $12.8 million total project cost (pictured above).
• Colonnade Park, Inverness.106 affordable housing units developed by Green Mills Group. $18.1 million total project cost.
The Capital Magnet Fund Program offers competitively awarded grants to CDFIs and nonprofit housing organizations that can be used to finance affordable housing solutions and community revitalization efforts that benefit individuals and families with low incomes and low-income communities nationwide. Award recipients are required to leverage their awards with other private and public investment by at least 10 to one; this year’s awardees anticipate that they will leverage more than $6.8 billion in private investment. This announcement will result in more than 26,400 affordable housing units, including more than 25,600 rental units and more than 750 homeownership units. Since its establishment by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, the Capital Magnet Fund has created over 63,000 affordable homes, including more than 55,600 rental housing units and 7,400 homeowner-occupied units. More information on the Capital Magnet Fund program is on the CDFI Fund website
About Florida Community Loan Fund. Florida Community Loan Fund exists to maximize opportunities for people and places that exist primarily outside of the economic mainstream. FCLF is a nonprofit, minority-controlled, multifaceted financing entity with a 29-year history of providing flexible capital and expertise to nonprofit and mission-aligned for-profit entities to make projects successful and improve lives and communities. FCLF is nationally recognized for its work as a certified CDFI and CDE through the U.S. Dept. of Treasury and as a member of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta. www.fclf.org
