Urgent need demands innovation. As an affordable housing provider in a rapidly gentrifying city, Jubilee Housing pursues innovative solutions to further justice and equity.
Justice Housing Partners Fund
How do small nonprofits compete with wealthy developers for available properties?
To acquire properties, it used to take Jubilee over a year to assemble a sustainable financing deal with the city and get an acquisition loan approved. This was too long when we were competing with for-profit developers who could offer cash immediately to sellers.
In 2018, Jubilee opened the $5M Justice Housing Partners investment fund to provide competitive acquisition capital and bridge financing. Within 15 months, it was fully funded, and within 18 months we had secured four new properties for our justice housing™ expansion. While social impact investment funds are not new, no small organization has ever made a tool like this work before.
New Markets Tax Credits
How can nonprofits use unique financial tools to create more affordable housing?
To boost the ability of nonprofit developers to create more affordable housing in the District of Columbia, in 2016 the Jubilee Manna Community Development Enterprise (CDE) created a $15 million Justice Housing Opportunity Fund.
The fund, which is an innovative use of its New Markets Tax Credits (NMTC) will finance multiple affordable housing projects during the next seven years. Jubilee Manna CDE has established an $8 million credit pool for affordable home ownership projects and a $7 million credit pool for affordable rental housing projects.
Reentry Expansion
How can returning citizens succeed when they’re coming home to the most gentrified city in the country?
After their release from incarceration, returning citizens have to compete for scarce housing with the double burden of an affordable housing crisis and their convictions. As a result, one in five become homeless after three months and 18% recidivate within the first year of release.
In 2011, Jubilee founded its a supportive, compassionate reentry transitional housing program focused on ensuring the long-term success and well-being of returning citizens. Since the program began, [success stats, focus on low/no recidivism]. [But more successful program graduates than available long-term housing.]
In response, Jubilee is expanding the current Transitional Housing program into a four phase program: Pre-Release Outreach, Immediate Housing, Transitional Housing, and Long-Term Housing.
After this expansion is complete, it will be the first complete housing continuum for returning citizens in Washington, DC, and one of the few in the country.
Solar for All
How can low-income residents benefit from green energy?
One of the most exciting features of Jubilee’s new Maycroft building is our participation in the community solar panels that New Partners Community Solar has installed across the city.
Using the District’s new Solar for All program, New Partners turns renewable energy into financial credits, which in turn are given to 100 of Jubilee’s most rent burdened households. This translates into $40 – $60 in credit towards residents’ utility bills! The solar panels on the roof can also power a Resiliency Center for three days in the case of a grid wide blackout.
Urban Aquaponics
How can dense, urban spaces be designed for maximum social impact?
Jubilee has finalized plans for an aquaponics urban farm program at Ontario Place. The project, powered by rooftop solar panels, will expand Jubilee’s participation in the Solar for All program. It will be the first facility of its kind in the District of Columbia and the first residential facility of its kind in the United States.
The program is expected to generate approximately 13,000 plants a month. Half of the produce will be used to provide nutritious meals at King Emmanuel Baptist (KEB), and the rest will generate earned income to support the program. Jubilee also expects to use the farm at Ontario Place and the kitchen at KEB as workforce development sites that will provide wages alongside specialized solar, aquaponics, farming, food processing, and sales training to both Jubilee program participants and the wider community.
In establishing these unique programs, Jubilee has received invaluable technical support from FreshMinistries and the Steers Center for Real Estate at Georgetown University.
