MESSAGE FROM LEADERSHIP
///////// WE TAKE LEGACY SERIOUSLY. When a pandemic hits, we turn to our partners, and ask “what are you seeing, where are the needs, what do you need to respond?” And, “how can we help?”
And, when a pandemic lifts, we know the drill: party. Our 40th celebration was a highlight, even when rain forced us off the rooftop, we went down to the riverside with hundreds of our favorite friends, partners, supporters, and heroes. The people we honored were trailblazers, trail makers, and legacy leaders.
To them, and across our network, we are committed to the same approach that got us through the pandemic: we ask the same questions, again. “How we can emerge together, stronger, building on what we’ve learned and prepare to move ahead?”
2022 saw us exceed our investment goals, with new funders helping us catalyze change. We made foundational investments in new areas, like along the often-overlooked Blue Line corridor in Prince George’s County, where we are helping residents kindle the embers of change in how people live, commute, and engage in business. In Anacostia and across Wards 7 and 8, we are seeing the equitable development take shape as the 11th Street Bridge Park nears construction. In areas like Columbia Heights and Adams Morgan, LISC investments are breaking ground in high-cost neighborhoods where lesser visionaries would say it is too late for inclusive development.
Four decades in, our vision is sharp, our energy is high, and our determination for change remains as resilient as ever.
Sincerely,
Ramon Jacobson LISC DC Executive Director
PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS
2022 marked the 40th anniversary of LISC DC and with it came new partners, investments, opportunities, and celebrations. From supporting tenants in organizing to expanding our reach regionally, 2022 was a remarkable year where we honored the legacy of our past while fostering a vision for our future.
40TH ANNIVERSARY
LISC DC Celebrates 40 Years in Washington, D.C.
Rivers love rain more than rooftops do, so with the rain falling atop the DC Water’s glittering new HQ, we brought our 40th Anniversary gala down to the Anacostia riverside. Our spirits, though, were through the roof. Our 40th was more a reunion than a convening, and the 230 remarkable and beautiful guests were donors, partners, residents, and supporters, joining together in person for one of the first times since the COVID-19 pandemic.
From start to finish, our partners were the heart and soul of what made this event spectacular. The evening began and ended with stunning performances from Dance Loft on 14th and Dance Institute of Washington, two arts groups whose leaders have always asked how they can animate bodies and minds to lift spirits and neighborhoods. In between, our guests enjoyed inspiring remarks from LISC President, Denise Scott and LISC DC Executive Director, Ramon Jacobson, as well as a heart-felt awards ceremony acknowledging several local leaders.
Our Legacy Trailmakers Awards went to Stan Jackson of Anacostia Economic Development Corporation and Marty Mellett of Jubilee Housing for their decades-long work in blazing paths for community revitalization, and keeping those paths clear for the rest of us to utilize. For charting new paths toward equity, inclusivity and sustainability we were thrilled to recognize Diana Movius, Founder of Dance Loft, Rahsaan Bernard, President of Building Bridges Across the River, and The Capital Market team as Trailblazer Award recipients.
As Stan Jackson put it, “We must be creative with reimagining resources to not only increase revenue but to improve the quality of life of residents without displacement.” We’re thankful to have spent 40 years carrying out such a powerful mission and like the river, we’re ready to keep it rolling forward.
BUENA VISTA
Longtime Residents Organize and Build Ownership
Residents at Washington, D.C.’s La Unión Buena Vista are deeply rooted in their community, but it is a struggle to retain those roots in a neighborhood like Columbia Heights, where decades of gentrification have displaced many Black, Hispanic, and low-income households. In recent years, the median income for the area has jumped 66 percent, and the purchase price of homes has more than doubled.
For years, residents requested repairs to their units; their landlord consistently ignored them. But instead of acquiescing, they organized. Residents banded together to form a tenant’s association and start a rent strike in May 2020 in protest of dangerous conditions: roaches, holes in the walls, and persistently broken refrigerators.
After enduring years of inadequate conditions and bare minimum responses from the owner, the tenant’s association exercised their Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA) rights in 2022 and formed a limited equity cooperative. The coop operates the property as permanently restricted affordable housing with rents tied to incomes, so no one is unduly rent-burdened. “We fought for this housing, for our community,” Miranda declared, adding, “And now that it will be owned and operated by residents, it will be for a long time.”
With support from DC’s Department of Housing and Community Development Preservation Fund, LISC provided $6.66 million in acquisition financing for the tenant purchase of the 34-unit apartment complex, as well as for critical repairs. Ramon Jacobson, Executive Director of LISC DC, said, “It’s powerful to see what happens when tenants come together, and I hope it inspires others to resist, to respond, and to take charge when facing displacement."
EUCKAL
Justice Housing (and Arts) in the Heart of DC.
If you casually looked at Columbia Heights, Adams Morgan, and Mount Pleasant neighborhoods, you might assume that the “community development” work is done; The vacant abandoned buildings are gone, replaced by high end real estate, luxury hotels, and expensive night life venues. But if you believe in Justice Housing, then the time is right to create service enriched housing in neighborhoods of opportunity, and we were proud to help Jubilee Housing with that mission in 2022.
In November, Jubilee broke ground to bring two buildings back to life as justice housing. Collectively known as EucKal, the buildings will provide 50 deeply affordable units with a specific focus on family-sized units. The Euclid Street property was acquired after the tenant association assigned their Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act right to purchase to Jubilee Housing. The property was one of the first financed through our LISC DC Housing Preservation Fund. The Kalorama Road units will serve families earning 30% or less of the area median income and two-thirds are family-sized units.
Kalorama will also become home to an expanded Sitar Arts Center a multidisciplinary arts center providing affordable, high-quality education and workforce development in the arts, will occupy the ground floor as Sitar Next Door. This expansion allows Sitar to enroll hundreds of students in affordable afterschool and summer arts programs.
We also helped Jubilee look to the future, with LISC financing helping them secure 3 buildings with 165 apartments so residents wouldn’t be displaced by gentrification forces. Finally, we helped fund their work to create new housing for returning citizens, slated to start building in 2023. Justice in the heart of opportunity is timely, indeed.
PGC EXPANSION + 210 ON THE PARK
Prince George’s County Expansion in Pursuit of Equitable ToD
Convening, investing, consulting, and supporting – these are hallmark of LISC’s toolset and we provided a special focus on the Blue Line corridor in 2022. In the fall of 2022, LISC published an Inclusive Economic Development Agenda for Prince George’s County’s Blue Line Corridor. This effort, made possible by Kaiser Permanente, was the culmination of over a year of engagement with various stakeholders, and represented LISC’s formal expansion into Prince George’s County as well as a concrete commitment to inclusive economic development in the region.
As the county and this corridor witness new levels of investment, over $400 Million of State Bond Financing, LISC and local partners identified priorities to ensure development is equitable. Key themes included: investing in local stakeholders’ capacity to advocate for the type of development they want to see and participating when that development does happen, amplifying arts and culture via creative placemaking, and investing in programs to connect residents and local small businesses to increased economic opportunity.
Additionally, there is a special interest in increasing neighborhood amenities—grocery store, coffee shop, sit down restaurants, and a more walkable environment in general. The lack of these amenities near the Blue Line Corridor metro limits the number of jobs in the area, discourages the use of the Metro, limits investment, and ultimately devalues one of the community’s assets –regional connectivity.
We are putting our money to work on this smart growth, transit oriented and equitable vision. LISC invested in the first mixed-use development to break ground on the corridor. A Black-led development firm, Community First Development Corporation (CFDC), is developing 210 on the Park, a 158-unit, mixed-use development in Capitol Heights, MD. 130 affordable units, and just a short walk to the Blue Line metro that connects to job market from the new Downtown Largo, across the heart of DC to National Landing and beyond into northern Virginia. In July 2022, LISC provided a $2.7 million acquisition and predevelopment loan to finance costs associated with getting to construction closing.
BY THE NUMBERS
Since 1982
$557 million
invested
15,169
affordable homes & apartments
$3.3 billion
leveraged
3.7 million
square feet of commercial space
OUR FUNDERS
2022 Private Sector (Contributed $1,000+)
Amazon Housing Equity Fund
AMCREF Community Capital LLC
Bernstein Management Corporation
Blue Skye Development
CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield
CohnReznick LLP
Diane and Norman Bernstein Foundation
EagleBank
Forbright (FKA Congressional Bank)
H Street Community Development Corporation
Jane Bancroft Robinson Foundation
JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Klein Hornig LLP
Lois & Richard England Family Foundation
Mike and Evangeline Tierney
Morgan Stanley
Naomi & Nehemiah Cohen Foundation
Novogradac
PNC Bank
Prince Charitable Trusts
Richard Snowdon
Seth Goldman
The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation
Truist Financial Corp.
United Bank
Wallace Newsome
WC Smith
Wells Fargo
Thank you to our funders and partners who make this work possible”
2022 Public Sector
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
OUR TEAM
Staff
Ramon Jacobson Executive Director
Bryan Franklin Deputy Director
Melanie Stern Senior Lending Program Officer
Victoria Meléndez Program Officer
Ashley Rosado Assistant Program Officer
Local Advisory Committee
Alison McWilliams Executive Director, Naomi and Nehemiah Cohen Foundation
Donna F. Grigsby Vice-President, Community Development Manager, TD Bank
Eartha Morris Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer, Forbright Bank
Ellen McCarthy Principal, McCarthy Urban Associates
Gregory J. Melanson Partner, Terra Search Partners
Jimmie Jones Vice President, Community Development Manager, Truist
Mike Schwartz Program Officer, The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation
Patty Rose Executive Director, Perry School Community Services
Peter Tatian Senior Fellow, Urban Institute
Richard W. Snowdon, Esq. Chair of Local Advisory Committee, Partner, Trainum, Snowdon & Deane
Robert Peck Government & Defense Leader, Principal, Gensler
Samuel Parker Community Development Consultant
Victor Burrola Vice President, Senior Social Impact and Sustainability Specialist, Wells Fargo