The Gulf Coast Renaissance Corporation has launched an affordable housing development fund for the Gulf Coast. The Mississippi Gulf Coast Development Fund (MGCDF) will spur the development of workforce housing in the region by providing gap financing and direct lending to nonprofit and mission-driven developers who build owner-occupied and rental units for families making at or below 120% of the Area Median Income (around $60,000 a year for a family of four).
Developers who utilize the fund will also have to meet the high, but attainable, design standards of the Renaissance Builder & Developer Guild. The Guild, administered by Mississippi State University’s Gulf Coast Community Design Studio, was created to foster the redevelopment of communities as environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable through responsible land use practices with a particular focus on mixed-use and mixed-income communities.
Contact for information and to send completed applications: Denise Carver (dcarver@msgcrc.com)
Community Development Financial Institution
The Gulf Coast Renaissance Corporation was awarded a $96,876 grant from the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund. This grant is for technical assistance to allow the Renaissance Corporation to become a certified Community Development Financial Institution. The award is part of $54.2 million the US Treasury Department awarded to 89 organizations serving economically distressed communities across the nation. The awards are being made through the fiscal year 2008 round of the CDFI Program. Renaissance was the only Mississippi-based organization awarded in this round.
Renaissance will use the award to hire and train staff to administer CDFI services - which typically include providing loans, investments, financial services and technical assistance to underserved populations and communities in the three coastal counties. CDFIs help spur economic development (job creation, business development, and commercial real estate development); affordable housing (housing development and homeownership); and community development financial services (provision of basic banking services to underserved communities, financial literacy training, and predatory lending alternatives).
