Our Stories

JumpStart Philly: Diversifying Development to Build Community Wealth

When it comes to narrowing gaps in housing affordability and building local wealth--especially in communities marked by long histories of discrimination—it is important to invest in the expertise of minority developers, just as it is in the properties they build.

When it comes to narrowing gaps in housing affordability and building local wealth--especially in communities marked by long histories of discrimination—it is important to invest in the expertise of minority developers, just as it is in the properties they build.

That’s the impetus behind a LISC small business loan this year to JumpStart Philly. JumpStart is a neighborhood-based program that trains novice developers, especially those looking to revitalize blighted properties, support affordable housing, and invest in communities of color.

Since 2015, the program has trained more than 1,000 people—85 percent of whom are women and/or people of color. In addition to education and mentoring, JumpStart also helps provide acquisition and construction financing so program graduates can get valuable development efforts off the ground.

“The big upside of JumpStart is that we’re getting a lot of people into the real estate development industry who have not been able to break in previously,” said Ken Weinstein, JumpStart’s founder and a prominent local developer. He leads Philly Office Retail and has focused on the adaptive reuse of properties for decades.

One JumpStart graduate, who has now completed three projects, recently rehabbed a two-story row house in Brewerytown that was at risk of demolition.  Another, at only 19 years old, is gutting an outdated three-bedroom home. JumpStart even counts an Olympian among its participants, as track star Ajee Wilson took advantage of JumpStart training over the past year.

“I don’t know how many commercial real estate meetings I have been to, and you look around the room and it’s 95 percent white male,” said Weinstein. “I’m hoping, partly because of the JumpStart program, that that room looks very different five or 10 years from now.”

Proceeds from the LISC loan will help support financing for one-to-three-unit properties being developed by graduates of neighborhood-based JumpStart programs in Germantown, Hunting Park, North Philly West, Southwest, Tioga, and West Philly—all of which are majority-minority communities with poverty rates that exceed the city average. 

The need is clear: Philadelphia has nearly twice as many low-income renters as housing units those families can afford. Four in 10 Philadelphia households are cost-burdened, paying more than 30 percent of their income for rent or mortgage, and that number rises to 88 percent for families earning less than $30,000 per year.

“For LISC, this loan is about helping a proven organization build its capacity for innovation and impact,” said Steve Hall, LISC's VP for small business lending, who also noted that the organization provided seed funding to JumpStart in its early years, helping it expand its first program in Germantown to other neighborhoods.

“JumpStart’s work aligns with our local efforts to build economic opportunity and support racial justice.”
— Steve Hall, VP for Economic Development Lending & Small Business, LISC

“JumpStart’s work not only aligns with our local efforts to build economic opportunity and support racial justice, but it also reflects LISC’s national Project 10X initiative, which aims to invest $1 billion to reduce racial gaps in health, wealth and opportunity,” Hall said.

Jumpstart Philly offers open-source Real Estate development training materials and how-to guides to other communities that want to replicate their programming in their respective communities. The Jumpstart Philly guide has been successfully deployed in Wilmington, DE, Norristown, PA, and Oklahoma City, OK. For more information, visit Gojumpstart.org.

For more on JumpStart, visit https://jumpstartphilly.com/
For more on LISC Philadelphia, visit https://www.lisc.org/philly/