Stories
Local LISC Leadership Gets the Spotlight
A recent spate of articles about LISC local office leaders shine a bright light onto the commitment, expertise and hard work our executive directors bring to the complex and demanding job of investing in communities that have been marginalized. Check out these conversations with Hampton Roads, Virginia's Jay Grant, New York's Valerie White, and Jacksonville's Dr. Irvin Cohen.
LISC Commits $50 Million in Partnership with Richmond, VA to Tackle Affordable Housing Crisis
In a new partnership with the City of Richmond, LISC has committed $50 million to be deployed over the next five years to create affordable housing. The funds will match the city's commitment of $50 million—totaling $100 million—and “will help accelerate the speed and scale of housing development, with a ripple effect that positively impacts jobs, health, safety and other key components of opportunity and growth,” said LISC's president Denise Scott.
How the LIFT Act Can Make Homeownership, and Strong Communities, a Reality for More Americans
In an op-ed for The Virginian-Pilot, LISC Virginia executive director Jane Ferrara lays out the ways the proposed LIFT Act could make homeownership, at 20-year, fixed rate mortgages, accessible to first-time, first-generation buyers—the very people who are often edged out of the American Dream. The legislation, in partnership with home-buying programs like the ones LISC leads, Ferrara writes, can help "bridge the racial wealth gap as well as the gap between dreams and reality for the next generation of aspiring homeowners."
Early LISC Investment Lays The Groundwork for New Public Housing in Virginia
Creative community investments recognize long-term opportunity, not just short-term risk. They can fuel transformative change for people and communities, even when conventional capital is not available.
“I’m still serving”: LISC AmeriCorps Pivots to Take on a Crisis
The fundamental role of LISC AmeriCorps members is to serve essential community needs. With the onslaught of the coronavirus epidemic, our members are adapting and devising creative new ways to help the rural and urban residents they work with handle the seismic social, economic and public health shocks of the crisis. (Photo: Americorps members in Jackson, MS in 2019; Member Cynthia Renteria is third from left.)
Announcing the LISC Rapid Relief and Resiliency Fund
LISC is taking swift action in response to the coronavirus pandemic, to mitigate economic impact on residents in the hundreds of communities where we work. We are launching the LISC Rapid Relief and Resiliency Fund to assemble and deploy resources to our local partners, small businesses and residents who are being hit hardest. The Fund will deliver operating capital, emergency subsidies and IT support, as well as technical assistance, to keep our partners and their communities strong and functioning through this unprecedented situation.