San Francisco — The Community Vision (Community Vision), a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) headquartered in San Francisco, has been awarded $45 million in New Market Tax Credits (NMTC) from the U.S. Department of Treasury’s CDFI Fund.
Community Vision is one of 76 organizations across the United States to receive a total of $3.5 billion in tax credits, which are used to stimulate private investment in low-income communities.
Over the last seven years, Community Vision has been awarded and fully deployed $113 in NMTCs. These credits leveraged an additional $180 million to low-income communities throughout Northern and Central California that support housing, youth development, community arts, people with disabilities, and environmental innovation. Through the NMTC program, Community Vision has successfully financed 12 projects which created or preserved 370,000 square feet of community facilities and 3,508 jobs. This year’s award will bring Community Vision’s cumulative NMTC allocations to $158 million.
Established by Congress in 2000, the NMTC program was created to provide an opportunity for individual and corporate taxpayers to make investments that stimulate economic development and create jobs in low-income communities. Since the program’s inception, $35.3 billion in NMTCs have been invested in low-income communities.
This spring, Community Vision provided NMTC financing to the Salud Para la Gente, a Federally Qualified Health Center in Watsonville, which provides high-quality, comprehensive, and cost-effective healthcare to its patient population of primarily Latino farm workers and low-income residents in the area. The organization currently operates five clinics, 14 school-based clinics, a mobile clinic van and serves nearly 25,000 patients in the area.
Community Vision provided $8.6 million in NMTCs to Salud Para la Gente to renovate and expand its main clinic in Watsonville, CA. The renovations will add over 7,000 square feet of new space and 13 new medical exam rooms, one procedure room and four dental clinics. Additionally, the women’s health unit, reception areas, meeting rooms, outreach and enrollment service areas will be redesigned to improve patient experience and flow. The renovation will be completed in 2015 and will allow the organization to see over 100 more patients daily.
“As our experience has proven, the NMTC program is a powerful tool to revitalize distressed communities and create thousands of new opportunities for jobs, health care, and education,” said Mary A. Rogier, Community Vision’s President. “The impact throughout California’s low-income communities has been tremendous. We greatly look forward to continuing this transformative work in 2015.”
For more information about Community Vision’s NMTCs, please contact Ross Culverwell, Director of Lending, at (415) 392-9215 ext. 317 or rculverwell@www.ncclf.org. For more information about the New Markets Tax Credit Program, please visit www.cdfifund.gov/nmtc.
