NHC Leadership Circle member J.P. Morgan Chase has a long history of banking in Detroit, in part from through acquisition of National Bank of Detroit. So when the city began facing financial troubles that eventually led to bankruptcy last December, Chase stepped in to assist with the recovery process. The company is investing $100 million over a five-year span to help accelerate the recovery process.
The funds provided by Chase will be allocated to cover a variety of initiatives that include strengthening workforce readiness, increasing economic growth through community development and growing the city’s small businesses. Partnerships with community development financial institutions, including Invest Detroit and Capital Impact, will strengthen the city’s ability to develop new retail, commercial and residential properties and sustain or rehabilitate existing properties, through the formation of the Chase Invest Detroit Fund and Detroit Neighborhoods Fund, respectively. Chase has committed $50 million to this effort.
Chase is pledging another $25 million to neighborhood revitalization and stabilization to support Detroit’s work to diminish neighborhood blight and restore properties to productive use. These efforts, which are being supported by the Detroit Land Bank Authority and the Detroit Blight Removal Task Force, will also encourage homeownership.
“With this investment in Detroit, JPMorgan Chase is stepping up and doing our part when our country and this community need us,” said Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon in a release. “We are putting our resources and expertise to work to help this iconic American city chart the course back to economic prosperity.”
“Chase’s commitment of private resources to stabilize a place hit so hard by the foreclosure crisis relies on the same logic that animates NHC’s policy work in this area. Strong, vital neighborhoods benefit all, and we should all pitch in to help them recover,” commented Ethan Handelman, NHC’s Vice President for Policy and Advocacy. “Indeed, that’s a key theme of discussions in the Restoring Neighborhoods track at our Solutions Conference this November.”
Other partners in the recovery commitment are Bizdom, Brookings Institution, Community Development Advocates of Detroit, Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation, Detroit Youth Employment Consortium and Eastern Market Corporation.