October 28, 2019

NHT Joins Purple Line Equitable Transit-Oriented Development Collaborative

Last week, JPMorgan Chase & Co. awarded a collaborative made up of National Housing Trust, Enterprise Community Partners and Latino Economic Development Center a $5 million, three-year grant to help expand access to economic opportunity for local residents and small business owners along the 16-mile Purple Line light rail corridor in the Greater Washington D.C. region.

The Purple Line project in Maryland’s Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties will provide more efficient transit and spark redevelopment around its 21 stations. The investment allows the collaborative to provide targeted loan capital and resources for the preservation and development of affordable housing and small business expansion along the planned Purple Line corridor.

More than half of the grant will come to the National Housing Trust Community Development Fund (NHTCDF). This catalytic investment is the single largest in the NHTCDF’s history and will allow us to bring our unique financing products to the corridor, preserving affordable communities that would otherwise be lost.

The collaborative, Purple Line Equitable Transit-Oriented Development, seeks to accomplish the following objectives:

  • Create a framework to preserve/create 1,000 affordable homes and help attract new investments;
  • Support more than 200 small businesses with small business loans totaling $900,000 and customized bilingual technical assistance, resulting in 300 jobs preserved/created;
  • Partner with community organizations to provide technical assistance to overcome capital investment hurdles and accelerate projects; and
  • Pursue the goals of the Purple Line Corridor Coalition (PLCC), a group of public-private-community leaders – led by the University of Maryland’s National Center for Smart Growth (NCSG) with community organizations, state and local governments, nonprofits, philanthropies and businesses such as Kaiser Permanente – with a collective vision and action strategy for vibrant economic and community development along the corridor.

Purple Line Equitable Transit-Oriented Development is a collaboration among National Housing Trust, Enterprise Community Partners and Latino Economic Development Center, with support provided by Enterprise Community Loan Fund. Our transformative efforts will be informed by the Purple Line Corridor Coalition’s vision for the area, which was established after an extensive stakeholder engagement process.

For more information on NHT’’s loan funds, contact Lending Director Josh Earn.

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