Community Vision is pleased to announce that we have been awarded $60 million in New Markets Tax Credits (NMTC) from the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund. Community Vision is one of more than 70 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 decade, Community Vision has disbursed $156 million in the credits, which leveraged an additional $258.2 million, to low-income communities throughout Northern and Central California. Community Vision has allocated NMTCs to support community arts, affordable housing, youth development, people with disabilities, immigrants, and environmental innovation. Through the NMTC program, Community Vision has successfully financed 17 projects which created or preserved 570,713 square feet of community facilities and 4,671 jobs. This year’s allocation award brings Community Vision’s total tax credit allocations to $218 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.

In 2016, Community Vision provided NMTC financing to HealthRIGHT 360’s new “Home for Health,” which integrates healthcare services for at-risk San Francisco residents. The organization started with a partnership between the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic and Walden House, and later welcomed Asian American Recovery Services (a Community Vision borrower), Lyon-Martin Health Services, and others to serve the most vulnerable residents of the city in one, centralized location.

With investment from Bank of America, Community Vision deployed $8 million in NMTCs towards the project’s total financing costs of $52.8 million. In addition to this, Community Vision provided $1.7 million of an $8.5 million term loan provided by the Nonprofit Finance Fund to help fund the project. The 50,000 square foot facility at 1563 Mission Street serves more than 10,000 people annually and provides primary medical treatment, oral health/dental treatment, substance use treatment, re-entry support services (housing, employment, education, computer literacy, and more), and an on-site pharmacy. The center was completed in 2017.

“The NMTC program has proven to be a wonderful opportunity to bring new sources of private capital to build sorely-needed development projects and services which, without the incentive of these innovative tax credits, would otherwise not be created,” said Mary A. Rogier, Community Vision’s president. “We look forward to working with our private sector partners to use these powerful investment tools to develop permanent assets for communities throughout Northern and Central California.”

For more information about Community Vision’s NMTCs, contact Ross Culverwell, Community Vision’s chief lending officer, at (415) 392-9215 ext. 317 or rculverwell@ncclf.org. For more information about the New Markets Tax Credit Program, visit www.cdfifund.gov/nmtc.