Episode 41: A New Conversation about Development Finance
On this episode, Dan Nissenbaum describes how the Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF) is working to deliver capital to projects that advance racial equity.
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“It is a little roiling and dislocating to have these conversations about racial equity. It means, as one person said, bringing the personal to the professional.” — Dan Nissenbaum
Nissenbaum, CEO of LIIF, has worked in community development finance for 25 years, including at Goldman Sachs and Chase Manhattan banks. He says the experience of the last year – of the pandemic, economic downturn, and racial reckoning – shows that while the industry has done a lot of good, it has not been intentional enough about race – or gender. LIIF is trying to do that, with “hard internal work, top to bottom.” They are developing a new framework to hold themselves accountable, offering new loan products, recasting credit standards, identifying financing criteria that inhibit racial equity and advocating at the federal level for changes to the Community Reinvestment Act.
LIIF’s new strategic plan focuses on affordable housing, early care and education. They have pushed into equitable transit-oriented development (ETOD), including partnering with transit agencies on “upstream” investments that stabilize housing and small businesses in areas where new transit will be coming. Through involvement with initiatives such as SPARCC and Purpose Built Communities they are finding out what communities want from development – long term equity and to control the assets. To do this, he says, we’re going to need to change systems.